The cross-party consensus on keeping Scotland in the EU’s single market fractured earlier this week – the LibDems and Tories voted against the government’s motion, Labour abstained. The opposition parties justified this by accusing Nicola Sturgeon of playing independence games. But perhaps a different question should be asked: does Scotland, independent or not, want to be at the heart of the EU?

Current Brexit debates, across the UK, focus relentlessly on how to stay in, or retain access to, the EU’s single market. Supporters of a ‘soft’ Brexit often propose the Norwegian model – in the single market but outside the EU.

But if Scotland, or the UK, followed Norway into the European Economic Area (EEA), it would be on the edge of Europe, not at its heart, gaining economic benefits but standing back from the EU’s current serious challenges. From EU sanctions on Russia over Ukraine to climate change, youth unemployment, the refugee crisis, relations with Turkey, populism and more, the EU faces many big issues. Yet the soft Brexit focus on the single market risks, as much as hard Brexit, driving a general disengagement from these European crises.

Staying in the single market may, even so, be preferable to whatever complex UK-EU trade deal is finally negotiated but it will be a move to the sidelines. And, as well as taking on the EU’s four freedoms, including free movement of people, it means implementing all EU single market laws without having a vote or any serious influence.

This lack of a vote or voice led a major Norwegian study in 2012, looking at 20 years in the EEA, to conclude that Norway faces a ‘huge’ democratic deficit. Its author stated: “There are few areas of Norwegian democracy today where so many know so little about so much as is the case with Norwegian European policy.”

Nicola Sturgeon is, even so, bringing out proposals in December for how Scotland could stay in the single market, while remaining in the UK. Many have criticised this idea as unlikely or impossible. The technical details are certainly many and complex, and the likely impact on economic links between Scotland and the rest of the UK will be pored over.

The politics are demanding too: Theresa May would have to agree to include this in the UK’s talks with Brussels, and the EU itself might find it too complex to accept. But, in the face of a ‘hard’ Brexit potentially meaning less trade with the EU and substantial economic disruption, it is surely worth exploring.

The real problem though, in Scotland and at UK level, is that no political party is currently making a strong case for staying in the EU as a whole and playing a serious role in Europe’s big challenges.

The SNP have dialled down their rhetoric on the EU, while focusing on their single market plans. Labour, like the Tories, call for maximum access to the single market while promising not to oppose or delay triggering Article 50. The LibDems are demanding a second referendum on the final UK-EU deal – a deal which may not come for several years. But no one is arguing to change minds now and have a second EU referendum before the UK is out of the EU in early 2019 (with just the first ‘exit’ deal agreed).

Some pro-independence voices can also be heard suggesting that the Norway model would be preferable for Scotland even after independence. Such arguments include opposition to the EU’s austerity policies, the inability of a small country to influence EU decisions, or the attraction of having control of Scotland’s agriculture and fisheries policies (not included in the EEA).

But smaller EU member states, in fact, have considerable influence – whether through having a veto over foreign policy decisions such as Russia sanctions or EU enlargement, or by forming alliances with other countries, and because the EU aims for consensus wherever possible. And Norway, of course, chose the EEA after voting against joining the EU. Scotland voted to remain.

For now, the whole UK is on track to leave the EU. If Theresa May rejects Nicola Sturgeon’s single market proposals, Sturgeon will have to decide whether to risk an early indyref2. But one big, overlooked risk in the current narrow debate is that Scotland, with or without the rest of the UK, might be heading for a permanent place on Europe’s sidelines.

Kirsty Hughes, Associate Fellow, Friends of Europe