Would independence vote mean the end for Scottish people in Jersey?

Wednesday 26 February 2014

With Scotland edging closer to a referendum on leaving the UK and potentially being thrown out of the EU a new question has emerged – will Scottish people lose the right to live and work in Jersey?

Scots currently have the right to live here because of their ties to the EU and UK, but the prospect of Scotland leaving both and going it alone has raised a new question about whether they would still have the right to hold employment and accommodation in Jersey.

The Home Affairs department say that they are following the debate about Scottish independence closely, but the big problem remains that there is a lack of clarity about exactly what the Scottish National Party under First Minister Alex Salmond is proposing and how it would work. Mr Salmond says that if Scotland votes for independence in the September referendum, Scottish people will still be EU citizens with the rights to move around the Common Travel Area freely – but the heads of both the European Council and the EU Commission have publicly disagreed in recent weeks.

Home Affairs Minister Ian Le Marquand said that there was no prospect of Scottish people becoming “stateless”, but that how the process worked would depend on how the Scottish and UK governments decided to implement independence – if the Scottish people decide that they want it.

He said: “In relation to new Scottish Nationals coming to Jersey a key issue will be whether Scotland will, in future, remain within the British Islands common travel area. There is a previous precedent for this in relation to Eire. When this split away from the UK it remained within the Common Travel Area. I would expect this to happen with Scotland. Otherwise, immigration controls would have to be set up all along the border between Scotland and the UK.

“If Scotland became an independent country then the precise details would need to be worked on by the corresponding departments in different parts of the British Isles. However, a major problem with the referendum proposals is that none of these details have been made clear.”