They want to go it alone they are welcome to it. But no bending over backwards from the UK if they do. No shared currency. No voting of Scottish MPs on English, Welsh or Northern Irish issues over the next two years. No automatic assumption of the Queen as head of state, no backdoor entry to the EU, no backdoor entry into NATO,no open borders to the rest of the isles, no retention of British Citizenship unless Scottish Citizenship is forgone by the individual citizen, and so on. Salmond thinks it'll be another Norway or Lichenstein, and he derives this almost entirely from the value oil reserves, but he wants a psuedo independent state to do it with and he seems oblivious to the fact that it takes a lot more than oil wealth to operate a sustainable economy over the long term, especially when non-oil related and oil related corporations have already signified their intention to move out of Scotland if there's a yes vote. I think the whole thing is a "back of a fag packet" ill thought out, ill prepared farce that isn't truly taken seriously by the Yes or No campaigns, or, indeed, many of the Scots themselves who want to vote yes for nationalist reasons rather than making sure the SNP model is sustainable. I'd like to see the union remain mainly because the paternal side of my family hails from Scotland. Indeed, I have a Scottish surname. So having that mix of origins really illustrates to me how much an integrated people the Scots and the rest of the UK have become. I have no issue with the principle of independence if that's really what most Scots want. I just don't think it's ultimately in their best future interest, nor in the interests of the rest of the UK. What's more I find the whole "we don't want to be governed by Westminster" to be an incredibly weak argument for splitting up the nation. It's always premeditated on the basis that Scotland is it's own country that most reflect the Scots. But really, that's a load of bollocks. There's not a Scot alive that have lived in anything other than the age of union and in their lifetime the UK has always been, for all intents and purposes, one nation state. To me, it's no less ludicrous than hypothetically saying that, say, Birmingham, should get independence because in a general election the votes in Bucks swayed the victory towards the Tories, but Labour got the most votes in Birmingham. The whole thing is desperately silly and I see little purpose in splitting up a stronger nation in favour of two smaller ones.
Wouldn't need it. All we'd need to do is air drop all of our cheap supermarket booze on Glasgow and the Scots wouldn't even make it as far as Dumfries!
The UK can't stop Scotland from using the pound. All that they have to do is to call it the Scottish pound and peg the value to Sterling. They wouldn't have any control over it, but they'd still be using it. Ireland did this until 1979.
So you're saying they have two options. A new currency just named "pound", or they use a foreign nation's currency without the power to impact it's value? Not only would the the "Scottish pound" not be pound sterling, but whatever it started off as, it would not stay the same as the pound as it would ultimately be augmented by the Scottish economy and, consequently, the post independence Bank of Scotland. There would also be no obligation on the UK to treat it as anything other than a foreign currency, irrespective of whatever Salmond proclaims. Alternately, if they continued to use the Bank of England pound, and thus based their economy on a foreign and, like you suggest, currency entirely out of their control, then they are positioning themselves not only for economic inflexibility, but also wouldn't be truly independent of mother Westminster. So it's really quite simple, they have their own currency or they are still the bitches of the British economy, which doesn't sound like independence to me.
Those are the same option. And no, it wouldn't necessarily be a good idea for reasons including some of the ones you state. But it'd still be the pound for all practical purposes.
No, they really aren't. A currency in Scotland named "pound" but regulated by their own national bank is to the rest of the UK a foreign currency. GBP, if used by Scotland, would be the domestic currency of the UK, regulated by the UK and used by an independent nation, which would have no ability to regulate it. You don't understand this distinction?
No. Whether it's Sterling or their own pound managed via a security board, they are only giving up control of monetary policy. Fiscal policy would still (unfortunately) be set in Scotland.
They are only giving up control of monetary policy eh. Well, then they are giving up total control, are they not? That's the whole point I'm making.
You're saying there's no difference between a fully autonomous currency and one regulated by another nation state? Jesus wept.
And the point you are making is wrong. It is likely a mistake to leave monetary policy with London, but it is certainly possible and not something that represents "total control" of economic policy.
So this is the second time you have told me I am wrong but that you have again made my point for me. If London still has an influence is that total independence? I think not.
Um, I don't see Chup claiming that it's a dictate, or even that it means control of all economic policy It means control of monetary policy, and that's no small thing.
On the train home from manchester and the train wifi is broken. Fuck you Branson! I've wrote paragraphs on the subject and saved it, i'll upload when i get home. Nothing ground breaking that you wont find in countless opinion pieces on the web but i've tried to give a flavour of what its like here and the difficulty of picking apart the bluster of the yes campaign from the no campaigns project fear
Exactly, and what's more @gul asks who claims the pound. Well, not only is the pound an English origin currency, from before the union, but he really needs to ask himself of a Scottish Pound will compete internationally with the British pound sterling. A genius it requires not to know that the answer is a resounding no. They either go it alone and take the risk with their own currency, or they directly use pubs sterling and accept that they will be servant to the strength of the British pound as influenced by the UK economy. I mean, come on. The economies of the EU are dictated by the UK and Germany. Is @gul really suggesting that Scotland could be an equal competitor AND still kowtow to London on monetary policy? It's an utterly ridiculous notion. Either they have a fully independant currency or they aren't genuinely indpendant, and this is the lie that Alex Salmond is happy to promote.
Lets be honest, if the vote is Yes, then yes, there'll be some form of currency union. The prospect of any Scottish economic nosedive infecting the UK pretty much means the Coalition and Labour will do a reverse ferret, they'll call it something else though, or say it's a temporary thing and not really a currency union. Do the political math - Scotland goes, and its likely their votes won't count next General Election, which means the Tories have the better chance to get a majority, and they won't want to be holding an economic bomb when they do, and on the off-chance Labour manage to get the Scottish votes to count, they'll be thinking the same. No one cares what the Lib Dems think. Probably not even the Lib Dems.
Not only labour doing the u turn, but the business community as well. Once they start lobbying, Salmond gets his way. Cameron will be out of a job anyway if hes the pm who loses the union, the tories can save face by saying its a Cameron dictat that theres no currency union
Gideon is the purveyor of student-level politics, that greasy shit Salmond would have him for lunch. Christ, if Osborne negotiated, fucking Birmingham would need a 'Mc' in front of it.
I think that if they separate, we should just get them into the EU and the Euro as fast as we can. I don't know if that's what we will do, but we ought to.
@Stallion - If Scotland goes, both Cameron and Milibrain would find themselves out on their ear, the ructions would be interesting, and Farage would be laughing all the way to the polls. Be very interesting times, the Tory leadership would be a bloodbath, and Labours split between the Blairites and Brownites would reopen. The 2015 election would actually be bloody good fun!
No one in their right mind wants to join the Euro right now. France is doing a bang up job of doing on its own what everyone thought the PIIGS would do combined. Until what is seen to be left in the ECB's armoury, and just how much Germany wants to be hock to keep the thing together, anyone joining the Euro willingly is loony.
I never get posters who begin with this. No, there was no thread on this boring topic which is important only to you until now. Whoopee.... As if your homeland sets the high standard for professional journalism.
I.e., "if it ain't about 'murica, T.R don't care." What this thread needs is some of your "clever" cartoons.
