Border controls inevitable if Scotland votes for independence, say May

The people of Scotland will need passports to travel to England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland if it becomes independent because it will have to join the European Union's free-travel area, British home secretary Theresa May said.

She warned that “border posts at Berwick or Gretna Green” are an inevitability if Scots vote Yes for independence on September 18th.

Mrs May said Scottish first minister Alex Salmond’s independence plans include encouraging large numbers of immigrants to come to the country. “The continuing UK could not allow Scotland to become a convenient landing point for migration into the United Kingdom,” the home secretary told Scottish Conservatives in Edinburgh.

“So that would mean border controls between a separate Scotland and the United Kingdom. Passport checks to visit friends and relatives. A literal and figurative barrier between our nations,” she went on.

Ireland and the United Kingdom are not members of the EU’s Schengen area, but new members to the union are required to accept its rules from the beginning.

“A separate Scotland could certainly try to negotiate a Schengen opt-out. But that would have to be negotiated and agreed with all the 28 existing member states – it is not in Alex Salmond’s gift,” she said.

The UK’s opposition to Schengen would not change. “So if Scotland had to join Schengen, it would have to construct border checks for a Schengen area that ended at Berwick or Gretna Green.”