When I wrote a quick tweet referring to the SNP on Saturday I did not expect the reaction that followed.
Now my follow up post on the blog has enjoyed quite a reaction too. As one commentator, named Geoff Hobson noted:
I understand you to be saying that an independent Scotland with sterlingisation (or even a pegged Scottish currency) would be significantly worse for Scotland and the Scottish people than remaining within the union. Have I got this right?
The answer is yes, he has got this right. As I see it either Scotland has an independent currency straight after independence or it is not worth being an independent Scotland.
Bill Hughes was also succinct:
The SNP will need to win a referendum first, and if it did not propose their own Scottish currency and voters read your article the SNP will surely lose as they did in 2014.
I did not intend that my argument be as pivotal as he notes, but I have sent it to The National in the hope that it might get a wider airing. It is up to them of course as to whether they wish to publish it. However, it is my intention to draw the issue out, as in all the discussions I have on independence (and I have quite a lot, with people in Scotland as I do talk to quite a lot of local groups on this issue) this is the number one concern, and clarity is sought, more than anything else.
But on this occasion Pilgrim Slight Return got to the heart of the arrgument:
It's all about sovereignty and the best way in my view for a country to begin talking in truly sovereign terms is to have its own currency within its borders, it's value driven by circulating it with a decent spend and taxation programme that only accepts the currency that the Government prints.
In this case, not the dollar, English pound or Euro but the Scottish poond! Or whatever you want to call it.
Sovereignty is not just borders, or laws or land; it's the ability to print your own currency.
More prosaically, money is power. How an earth the SNP thinks that power through just being independent (a mere political process and structure) is enough to get by I just don't know. Money talks and will pay for those borders, lands and laws to be effective and sustainable.
Precisely.
It really is time for the SNP to say where they are on this. There is no point saying there will be another referendum with this issue still in the air. It cannot be won without certainty. And if it is lost with certainty, so be it. But at least an honest debate will have been had.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Alternatively we may illuminate the underlying nature of the tension in the issue by looking at it from a different perspective, and construct the question slightly differently: ultimately, are the Scots really committed to the Union itself, or does the Union rather disguise a deeper commitment – to the currency?
Good question
Thanks for mentioning me and PSR in dispatches. Let’s hope your efforts in bringing Scotland its own currency with independence bear fruit.
There are several options
(1) new independent currency either (i) freely floating or (ii) pegged to either GBP, EUR
(2) keep GBP
(3) adopt the EUR
Option 2 means that economic policy will still be determined in London…. but without 50 Scottish MPs to argue their case.
Option 3 means all the problems of the EUR are adopted along with the problem of dealing with legacy GBP contracts in Scotland. Very messy and NOT a policy that should be propsosed…. but it IS a conceivable endpoint if the EU makes adoption of the EUR as a condition of a very generous EU joining deal.
In reality, option 1 is the only serious contender. However, within this there are various flavours of free float, managed float, peg (temporary or longer term) etc. each with their own pros and cons. What is really needed is for the case for a Scottish pound to be accepted and start NOW on the nitty gritty of what that would look like. Believe me, there are a lot of things to sort out that have not been touched on yet and if there is to be a credible plan the debate needs to move on.
Agreed on all fronts
I finished two thirds of the update to the full currency plan while on a recent cruise. The at sea days with no internet provided the ideal opportunity. So this will be published soon and is by me and Dr Robbie Mochrie of Heriot Watt Uni economics department. Runs to just under 30 pages and a generous donation means we will be getting it professionally printed and bound with a copy for every MSP and MP (the Scottish ones). Hopefully that will make some impact. My Scottish Currency Group resolution on establishing the Scottish Reserve Bank looks like it has finally got onto the agenda for the SNP conference (via Dalkeith and many other SNP Branches) at end Nov (along with another about spreading the new civil service jobs fairly across all 32 council areas).
So there definitely is a plan and we just need the SNP leader to accept that, which is of course the hard part as she does not seem to be much interested either in economics or in listening to anyone outside a very closed and narrow few.
Tim
Would happily peer review on confidence
Good luck with it
Good news on the resolution
Richard
Robbie Mochrie has a PhD and is a senior lecturer at Herriot-Watt University
Wouldn’t exactly be a ‘peer’ review would it?
I would say at least you could check for typos but that’s hardly your strong point either.
Peer review means read by another person with experience …. With the aim of spotting the flaws in the argument
It is never about typos
If it is (and I have seen it) it’s wrong
Unless I have read you wrong and you’re saying I am not qualified and not a peer, in which case you have to argue why a person why has been a professor at three universities and a fellow at several others is trumped by a senior lecturer
You have a bigger problem than Sturgeon not being interested in economics
Apart from as a vote-getting slogan at elections
There’s no indication she’s interested in independence either
This with bells on. Sturgeon and her cabal are compromised and likely instruments of the British state. That is the only conclusion any rational person can come too. If the British establishment wanted to f up the independence movement, what has happened over the last 5 years is the way they would do it. There are other complications but that is the main issue. Others involved with the SNP are either useful idiots or complicit in the bastardisation of Scottish politics and betrayal of Yes movement. The sooner SNP members realise this the better. The evidence although circumstantial is overwhelming.
If I were a member of the British Establishment, I would try to infiltrate the Independence Movement with Agent Provcateurs and encourage them to write provocative articles, that have nothing to do with the subject being discussed.
David, it is relevant to this discussion because a Scottish currency is pointless if we don’t become an independent country. The current SNP leadership will not deliver independence because they don’t want it. They aren’t even discussing or preparing for it. Plans for the creation of a Scottish central bank have been abandoned, which is the fist step necessary in creating a independent currency.
The SNP leadership has destroyed any semblance of democracy within the party. The social engineering that has taken place has been textbook infiltration technique. The SNP autumn conference at the end of this month is online only, for no obvious reason other than avoiding descent or discussion, independence isn’t even on the agenda!
I have supported the independence cause for 45 years voting SNP at every opportunity. Alarm bells started ringing almost as soon as Sturgeon was handed power unopposed. The SNP did not get my vote in 2021 and I voted for them through gritted teeth in the 2019 GE. I fear the SNP are now beyond saving. It’s bad enough that the Scottish public are being lied to by the unionists but when the SNP are doing it as well, I don’t think I have ever been more disheartened than I am now.
As I see it either Scotland has an independent currency straight after independence or it is not worth being an independent Scotland.
Let’s follow the logic of what that means.
Scotland becomes an independent country but 1 week later the negotiations on representation on the BoE MPC fall apart. Therefore independence is not worth it.
This is like saying going for a walk with your partner isn’t worth it because it takes 5 minutes to negotiate where you will go.
The negotiations begin three years before independence
The assumption is that there will always be an independent currency
Not maybe
But always
And on day 1
With the peg ending very, very quickly
“As I see it either Scotland has an independent currency straight after independence or it is not worth being an independent Scotland.”
Ireland didn’t have its own independent currency for decades after independence. It then had for a short time but has switched back to using someone else’s currency. So has Irish independence been worthwhile?
I understand where you’re coming from, but it’s going to be difficult to avoid the accusation that your pushing a Unionist line. A “let’s scare the horses” argument.
Jim
The use of sterling was a disaster – as I have pointed out before
It could be argued that the euro experience has not been good
All you prove is that Scotland can learn from those mistakes, but Ireland sure has made them
Your argument is the straw man one
Richard
SNP members should indeed be getting concerned Richard, not at what you have said, which makes sense, but at the failure of the SNP leadership to seriously address this currency issue. After all, this was the very issue that lost us the referendum last time. An independent Scotland with the city of London running our economy might appeal to Andrew Wilson who seems to be the unelected economic spokesman for the SNP, but it is not acceptable to the Scottish people. in the only vote recorded on the views of the Scottish electorate on the issue of a Scottish currency 59% were in favour of this
Surely more voters would support a Scottish Pound pegged to gbp. This would address the transition to M.M.T.where many would be scared of losing out financially . Many scots have savings in the uk !
If they understand how crippling that position is they would not do so – hence my whole post
Any investments I have are in sterling as is my company pension so it would be dishonest to say that I have never thought of the possible negative effects of independence. I have, however, been longing for a free Scotland for over fifty years and feel that if I am not prepared to trust the judgement of Scottish politicans to make a success of it, I have been wasting my time.
Conference has already voted on the matter. We can do it together but it must be with a Scottish currency at the heart of it.
If you have investments in sterl8ng most people would say you will be a winner
I am not so sure…..
Are you blocking comments? I can’t see mine which I posted in the morning, and another very worthwhile comment by I think Jean Foley. Let us know why these comments do not appear, thanks.
The comments you are looking for are on this post
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2021/11/07/why-the-snp-leadership-needs-to-work-for-an-independence-for-the-benefit-of-the-people-of-scotland-and-not-for-the-benefit-of-financial-markets/
I did reply saying this on Twitter yesterday
For the Scots not to make their own currency is to me a negation of history.
‘Simple as that.
Very dangerous for them not to.