On the fundamentals Alex Salmond's blueprint for independence resembles a piece of Swiss cheese with holes running through it.
At over 600 pages, the publication today of the Scottish government’s blueprint for independence could prove to be one of the biggest abuses of taxpayer-funded civil servant time ever seen.
What Alex Salmond and his deputy Nicola Sturgeon have produced is, as Better Together argued, tantamount to a wish list.
Whilst the document might be promising the earth, the reality is that on the fundamentals it resembles a piece of Swiss cheese with holes running throughout.
Take for example currency union. The document declares in no uncertain terms:
“An independent Scotland will be able to decide our currency and the arrangements for monetary policy.”
It asserts also that “Scotland will continue to use the pound”. The only snag is that it wouldn’t be for an independent Scotland to dictate to the rest of the UK whether it could adopt the pound.
Wales’ first minister Carwyn Jones has already made clear that he is “not convinced” that a currency union between an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK could work.
“I would be uncomfortable being part of a currency union where there are competing governments trying to run it. If there is a disagreement, who has the final say? This is a recipe for instability and these things matter, particularly in times of crisis,” he said.
Likewise both the current UK government and the shadow chancellor Ed Balls have concluded that a currency union would be highly unlikely. The SNP cannot, in all honesty, be certain of anything when it comes to the currency and independent Scotland would use.
On the crucial issue of nuclear weapons, the document again reiterates that an SNP government would, under independence, seek to banish such weapons from Scotland altogether whilst remaining in NATO.
Such a position remains dubious to say the least. Take the former NATO secretary general Lord Robertson, someone with probably more understanding of the subject than Alex Salmond, who earlier this year wrote:
“The Nato Strategic Concept states, ‘As long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance’. I have expressed my doubts about whether Scotland could eject nuclear weapons one day and expect to be welcomed into a nuclear alliance the next.”
These might just be two issues from a lengthy document, but they remain two of the most crucial issues of all. The currency a nation uses and defence systems it adopts are the very highest of priorities for sovereign nations, yet today’s paper cannot be certain of anything on these matters.
As the columnist Peter Jones so clearly writes in today’s Scotsman:
“We know broadly what Mr Salmond expects independence will deliver, which will have an impact internationally – Scottish membership of the European Union, non-nuclear independent membership of Nato, and Scottish sharing of the pound inside a UK sterling zone.
“We also know a bit about what the UK government’s attitude to these expectations is. What we don’t know is how other countries, who have levers in this debate, regard it. We might expect that France, for example, which has an equivocal relationship with Britain, or les Anglo-Saxons, might cheerfully help push through Scottish EU membership. But what if it regards the upheaval of having to remove Trident submarines from Scotland as an unacceptable dilution of European, and hence French, security?”
“On the other side of the debate, Germany has an acute interest in European financial stability. What if it decides that a shared sterling zone is the best guarantee of British financial stability and uses its clout in the EU, say by agreeing certain EU powers should be repatriated to assist David Cameron’s EU referendum, to achieve that?”
He continues:
“…the point remains – little of what Mr Salmond publishes today can be guaranteed as he might end up, thanks to truculent voters in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, negotiating with an extremely hostile UK government.”
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20 Responses to “The Swiss cheese blueprint for Scotland”
tadramgo
I don’t think you understand how currencies work (they are issued and managed by institutions called ‘central banks’ – the Bank of England has been owned by the UK since 1946 – the BoE is an asset of the UK).
You also make a mistake over what a ‘Reserve currency’ like GBP is – you cannot stop anyone using it as a means of exchange, otherwise it loses general convertability.
You have also chosen option 2 as I set out – i.e. Scotland leaves without any debt.
This is a bad option for many reasons – it leaves the rUK disproportionately debt-heavy. It means that the GBP is no longer bolstered by the geographic assets of Scotland (particularly oil and gas). Generally, the international community would freak out at the rUK’s petulance.
Selohesra
If the Scots vote No – will the SNP accept that and move on or just start capaigning for another referendum EU style until they get the right result?
Stephen Wigmore
Carry on dreaming. It’s not an encouraging sign when all Scottish independence supporters are basing it on plain ignoring reality.
Luckily all opinion polls show No campaign ahead. I’m going to enjoy every yes supporter crying into their tea in 9 months time. It’s going to be like Yes2AV all over again.
Richard Lewis
Why do so many fake internationalists like you resist the movement towards more self rule for communities like Scotland and continue to worship whitehall and westminster like some Incan sacred gods….dragging us islanders further into the mire
Im a northamptonshire born lad btw…and dont get me wrong Salmond is a corporate lover like the other UK nuts…but real independence starts with strong localism….not elitist teary eyed empire nostalgia of a 1700s banking plc
Chrisso
Just more of the same old
same old from poor Ed J. Roll out the ‘Swiss Cheese’ approach, haha that will
raise a grin. Ed’s article is so full of its own holes, did he get paid for it
or was it a freebie? What does he find contentious? – a sterling currency union
and Scotland dispensing with British nuclear weapons. Is that it?
Regarding
the former there is simply no doubt that as Scotland and rump-UK are prime
trading partners neither will want to complicate matters post-YES by having a
currency exchange between them. For example, in
1993 Czechoslovakia peacefully
dissolved into its constituent states, the Czech
Republic and the Slovak
Republic. The Czech Koruna is the currency of Czech Republic
which has still not adopted the euro and most of its population oppose joining
the eurozone. For a brief time in
1993 the Czechoslovakian koruna continued to be the currency in the separate Czech and Slovak republics.
Later it was replaced by the Czech
koruna and the Slovak
koruna, both at par. Slovakia joined the eurozone in 2009. So for 16 years the koruna was retained in both independent
countries. Similarly the British Pound could be retained by a rump-UK and an
independent Scotland: they could be deemed the ‘Scottish Pound’ and the ‘British
Pound’. Two replacement banks of rump-UK and Scotland would be needed – both
having derived from the UK joint-owned ‘Bank of England’ – and would need to
work together, agreeing currency parity initially, just like other dissolving nation
unions.
Scotland dispensing with nuclear weapons? There is no issue as almost all Nato’s members lack nuclear
capability. If rump-UK chooses to retain them and base them in England that’s a
matter for England not Nato.
Really Ed. As usual you say so little of consequence. Pity you don’t focus on the impact on rump-UK of Scotland’s departure and its ability to set its own social democratic agenda. That will have major effects on the rump-UK psyche – many here will wonder why we are being left behind by the more progressive Scots.