Being of a certain age,and to use a well worn analogy, right now It feels to me a bit like the classic Scotland World Cup nearly-win moments when Stevie Nicol missed a sitter against a ten man Uruguayan team in 1986 or the aftermath of Archie Gemmill’s wonder goal bringing us within a goal of qualification only to be cancelled out by a long range Dutch thunderbolt in 1978.
The recommendation from the Growth Commission report that Scotland continues to use the pound until some unspecified time , in an ‘extended transition period’ is going to cause us, the grassroots foot-soldiers of the independence movement for Scotland, exactly the same set of problems we had before in convincing our fellow country folk that our nation is best served by a government who live there and have Scotland’s interests first and foremost in mind.
We’ll still be at the mercy of the London treasury and the remaining UK economy, Scotland will have very little control of the financial levers that we crave, and are so sure that given the opportunity we can manage as a small compact Independent European state better than Big Brother, and the economic Andromeda Strain of Brexit, short, medium and long-term that we would hope independence would buffer us against will still severely damage our economy as if we were still part of the UK.
All of the usual suspects are going to have a field day. Cue wheeling out Gordy Broon, Lord Roulade of dark eyebrows, Philly the bookie Hammond and brush down Gideon out of his box of mothballs for a round of the Sunday’s in the next few weeks.
The recommendation is that we do not enter a currency union but create the Scottish regulatory framework to carry out the function of the Treasury in Scotland. You can see how London will spin that one to the undecided. Why bother? Why spend the set up costs? We still control the currency and interest rates.
Don’t make the job harder for us please. We need to get this right. We need to be able to convince our friends that critical decisions about our country will be in our hands and out-with the reach of British state interference.
itisintruthnotforglory 
Here we go again! More of this facile nonsense that assumes there is one single currency ‘solution’ which serves perfectly in all circumstances and for all time. And that the currency used is more important than the ability to decide what currency is used.
Ireland continued to use the pound after independence before creating its own currency and then adopting the euro. What this reminds us of, if we are not obsessively fixated on the name of the currency and whose picture is on it, is that the most important thing is to have options. What matters is, not what currency arrangements are adopted at any particular time, but the capacity to decide which currency arrangements are most appropriate and the ability do implement those arrangements efficiently.
Like it or not – scream and stamp your feet as much as you like – the fact is that there will be a period of transition. Andrew Wilson isn’t dictating now what that period will be or what specific arrangements will be put in place for its duration. He is merely presenting a scenario. What actually happens will be a matter for the democratically elected government of Scotland.
And the reality is that there is no such thing as an independent currency. Being independent doesn’t mean Scotland gets to just disregard the way the real world works. We may aspire to change the we it works. Or, at least, the way we work within it. But that isn’t going to happen as if by magic on the day we celebrate our exit from the Union.
Here is the crucial point being missed by all those rushing to judgement on the Sustainable Growth Commission Report. All of the things outlined or recommended in that report are strictly conditional on them being what is best for Scotland at the time. And utterly dependent on it being the people of Scotland who are ultimately responsible for deciding what is best for Scotland.
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The problem here as I see it is that while keeping the pound may well be the best technical solution to currency post-Indy, it’s an option that perhaps will not be too easily understood by the voting public. Thus making it more difficult to obtain the necessary majority in IndyRef mk. II. That at least is what I understood our host as trying to point out. So if the Pound is indeed the way to go, then a well thought-out information campaign will be needed to explain and convince the electorate of its merits … and the time for that may be short!
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Indeed.
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It’s a report. It is not government policy and we are not being asked to adopt it as a movement.
It also studies a whole range of similar sized countries I suspect the interesting bits will be on that part if we lift our heids a bit.
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Disclaimer: I’ve not read all of the report yet.
Are we fighting this on a battlefield of our choosing or of our opponents choosing? Who is making such a big deal of currency? My feeling is that we’re fighting on their turf – again. We need to move this to a field of our choosing. So, yes while I’m agreeing with our host I’m also agreeing even more so with Peter Bell. We need to be confident and assertive enough simply to remind people that every country has a currency and that *we* will be making the decisions about it.
It’s not going to be easy to overcome the bias of the media who will keep dragging the debate back here but that’s our task.
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