After
the visit of the Bank of England Governor no voter in the Scottish independence
referendum can claim to be unaware of the serious currency problems involved in
this leap in the dark. While the Canadian Mark Carney refused to be drawn into
the politics, he left little doubt that Scotland can either be fully independent
or stay with sterling, but not both.
The
First Minister used to claim that joining the euro was a vote-winner, but even
he now accepts “there is no prospect of an independent Scotland being a member
of the euro”. Of course he could start his own currency using, say, the Bank of
Airdrie as a central bank and track the pound as South American banana republics
track the US dollar. But a tiny nation’s currency is at the mercy of markets
unimpressed by Alex Salmond’s wishful thinking, leaving us exposed to
hyper-inflation and other economic ills.
So
it will not even require profligate Scottish bankers to create a situation
similar to that which followed the failure of the Darien venture in 1700, with a
bankrupt “Skintland” once again begging England to take it in.
Dr
John Cameron, St Andrews, The
Independent.
