Scottish Government priorities for UK-EU negotiations: position paper

Our position

The Summit marked a welcome shift in tone and momentum in UK-EU relations, and the Scottish Government is committed to engaging constructively to rebuild closer cooperation with the EU across a range of areas, for the mutual benefit of people and businesses in Scotland, the UK, and the EU.

We also welcome the positive messages from UK Government about the scope to develop the relationship further in future. Nick Thomas-Symonds, UK Minister for the Constitution and EU Relations, said in a speech in March that:

“The UK and EU’s future will be defined by how we both tackle our shared challenges together.”

He also said, in a speech in September, that the UK Government is committed to working with the EU:

“Ensuring that like-minded parties with strong social and environmental rules and strong rule of law can cooperate on collective endeavours.”

We want to explore all opportunities to enhance and develop the people-to-people and business linkages between Scotland and the EU. As well as negotiating a close relationship in the coming months, we want to be ready to implement this in the most impactful and beneficial way possible. In areas like UK reassociation to the Erasmus+ programme, or development of a youth mobility scheme for young people to live and work here or in the EU, we see real opportunities to rebuild some of the connective tissue between our peoples which Brexit has sadly undermined. Our relationship with the EU also plays an important ongoing role in helping to protect and advance human rights in Scotland. UK membership of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and its domestic implementation in the Human Rights Act 1998 are fundamental to the UK-EU relationship and must continue.

The Scottish Government remains clear, however, that no agreement can restore the economic, social, and security benefits lost through Brexit in 2020 – or undo the significant harm that Brexit has caused to Scotland since then.

In 2016, people in Scotland voted decisively to remain in the EU. Public opinion has consistently been clear ever since: Brexit was a mistake. YouGov polling in October 2025 for the Scottish Election Study found that if there were an EU referendum tomorrow, 63% of people in Scotland would vote to rejoin to EU, and just 21% would vote to stay out.

Likewise, a More in Common survey in August 2025 found that only 24% of people in Britain say Brexit has been a success, and that if the Brexit referendum were held today, only 29% of people in Britain would vote to leave. And a YouGov poll in January 2025 found that 67% of the British public say Brexit has been detrimental to the cost of living, 65% say that it has had a negative impact on the economy, and 64% say that it has been bad for British businesses.

Our position is unchanged: that Scotland’s interests are best served by rejoining the EU as an independent member state. Short of that, we support rebuilding as deep and ambitious a partnership with the EU as possible, and oppose the UK Government’s self-defeating red lines that rule out rejoining the Single Market, the Customs Union, and freedom of movement.

Dynamic alignment with EU law, and the related role of the European Court of Justice, feature in several parts of the Common Understanding text agreed at the Summit in May, and will be core to the framework for forthcoming negotiations with the EU. We welcome the potential for these discussions to pave the way for deeper reintegration in the future.