Why currency union would be a political impossibility

JOHN Curtice’s analysis of last week’s poll (News, 17 August) points out that many Scots still believe currency union to be possible and likely post independence. The SNP loves to couch this issue in the crudest of pantomime rhetoric, painting a lurid picture of villainous English politicians trying to hoodwink us into thinking they will be able to steal away “our pound”. The reality, it maintains, is that the “sovereign will” of the Scottish people will somehow prevail and we will be able to keep “our pound” as though nothing has happened. What about looking at this from the point of view of the “sovereign will” of the people of rUK, though?

Currency union would mean, among other things, that the Bank of England would underwrite Scotland’s massive finance industry, thus enabling it’s continuing existence at the heart of the Scottish economy. For the people of rUK this would mean living with the risk of having to bail out Scottish banks with their hard-earned taxes. Their reward for providing this service would be to create employment and tax revenue in a neighbouring country whose finance industry would be in direct competition with their own – a country which had just left the Union because it felt itself to be morally superior. The people of rUK are of course much nicer than the evil Tory politicians, but could anyone really be that nice? Obviously not, which is why currency union is a political impossibility.

The SNP high command knows this perfectly well but thinks it is more likely to win by lying about it than by confronting it. The insistence on currency union is consistent with its general strategy, which is to pretend that independence would be all gain and no pain, while playing the evil, duplicitous Westminster card at every turn.

Douglas Gibb, East Lothian