Douglas Carswell's Blog

What currency for Caledonia?

A tremendous amount of excitement has been generated by the suggestion that an independent Scotland would have to ditch the pound sterling and join the Euro.  Presumably this is all designed to try to make any Scots thinking of voting for independence to think again.  

It might seem tactically astute, but I'm less certain that making a Scottish referendum into a plebiscite on joining the Euro or keeping the pound makes a lot of strategic sense longer term.

Firstly, who is to say that Scotland could not have its own currency?  Norway, just across the North Sea, has the perfectly viable Krone - one of the world's most traded currencies by value, I'm told. 

Secondly, I suspect that in a generation or so most folk living in Scotland will use the same range of competing currencies that the rest of us will use; the pound sterling for sure, but others as well.  The internet, combined with the tendency of certain central banks to mismanage currencies, makes this more or less inevitable.

Trying to frame the question as a bleak choice between membership of Euroland or the status quo might be clever politics, but is it the right thing to do?  

Forget the positioning and the politicking.  The right thing to do is to allow the people of Scotland not just a referendum, but one that allows them the option of having complete autonomy over their own affairs while remaining part of the United Kingdom.     

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