Weighing up sovereignty and sterling

In what way can an independent Scotland be independent when it is dependent on the rUK for a currency union in which the Bank of England, which operates to rUK laws, is legally entitled to set interest rates and levels of borrowing (your report, 31 January)?

Furthermore, if the separatists who are determined to break up Britain are so sure of an independent Scotland’s standing with the rest of world, why do they even want to retain the pound sterling and why don’t they have their very own pound? Perhaps they’re not so confident after all.

Will Brooks

Leven

Fife

First Minister Alex Salmond says he wants an independent Scotland to keep the pound in a currency union with the rest of the UK. The Governor of the Bank of England says that this could not work successfully unless Scotland gave up some of its sovereignty over borrowing, spending and taxation. So, Scotland would only be semi-independent and at the same time would lose the billions of pounds it receives under the Barnett Formula as part of the United Kingdom.

What, therefore, is the point of leaving the United Kingdom?

Stephen J Edwards

Better Together

Musselburgh

Please don’t mention the UK’s membership of Nato, the United Nations or the European Union to the unionist alarmists, in particular Better Together’s Alistair Darling.

To join these coalitions that shape policies and drive alliances across the globe, the UK Government had to give up some sovereignty.

Hence, Scotland giving up a miniscule bit of sovereignty and keeping the pound has little for the Scottish people to really worry about.

It makes sense in the interest of both countries, should Scotland gain independence.

Donald J Morrison

Haig Street

Buckie

It seems that most of the outcry against Scotland “ceding sovereignty” to the Bank of England comes from the No campaign (Letters, 31 January) and Thursday’s comments by Alistair Darling, Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont and Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson.

I am glad to know that they believe reduced sovereignty is a bad thing.

Switzerland has recently pegged the Swiss franc to the euro at 1.2. In so doing it has lost control of its interest rates and the value of the franc, now essentially determined by the European 
Central Bank. Is Switzerland not an independent country any more? Small country currencies are just food for speculators. The Swiss franc and even the pound are too small, as investor George Soros showed by making £8 billion from pushing sterling out of the ERM in 1992.

Currency unions, like the sterling zone or the euro, are much better.

But this is the internet age. One day these national currencies will surely give way to some successor of Bitcoin which is a pioneering internet currency.

Then, in the words of the No campaign, no country will be independent.

George Shering

West Acres Drive

Newport-on-Tay

There is much to be said for shared currencies. In the 1980s I worked briefly in the Republic of Cameroon, where I used the banknotes of six countries which shared the Central African franc. It worked.

Earlier, I lived for some years in Nyasaland, now Malawi, before and after independence. It shared pounds, shillings and pence with Northern and Southern Rhodesia, now Zambia and Zimbabwe, in the Central African Federation, a creation of British policy which lasted from 1953 to 1964.

After independence, Malawi continued to use the shared currency, with no apparent serious problems. Later, it adopted its own kwacha, divided into 100 tambala.

Scotland’s situation is different and the modern world is full of problems but there are no insuperable ones about sharing a currency with neighbours, whether on a short or long-term basis.

David Stevenson Blacket Place

Edinburgh