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Professor Sionaidh Douglas-Scott, a professor of European and human rights law at Oxford University, has added her voice to those legal experts who believe Scotland would retain EU membership post-independence.

She said: "Despite assertions to the contrary from UK lawyers, EU lawyers and EU officials, any future independent Scotland's EU membership should be assured, and its transition from EU membership qua part of the UK to EU membership qua independent Scotland relatively smooth and straightforward.

"It would take the form of an internal enlargement of the EU using the procedure for treaty amendment in Article 48. These arguments are made on the basis of EU law itself, which, it is argued, provide all the resources necessary to assure an independent Scotland's EU membership through EU treaty amendment, and not through a cumbersome accession process as a new member state."