Sunday, August 24, 2014

The SNP's ludicrous position on a currency for Scotland

I can think of two good positions Scottish nationalists could adopt on the currency their country should have after independence.

They could say that Scotland would be a prosperous country in its own right and have its own successful currency.

Or they could say that Scotland would be a modern European nation and naturally adopt the Euro as its currency.

Though I distrust nationalism as a political philosophy, I can see the appeal in both these arguments.

I can see no appeal in the Scottish government's position that it would adopt the UK pound as its currency after independence.

Yes, it could do that: a number of Central American banana republics use the US dollar without any official sanction from Washington. But I do not see them as a promising model for a newly independent Scotland.

The idea that Scotland will use the pound smacks of the sort of inferiority complex that independence should be intended to overcome. It reminds me of a young child insisting on trailing along with an older brother and his friends: "You can't stop me and if you try I will tell Mum on you."

As long as the SNP holds to this position, I shall conclude that, deep down, they do not really want independence but would rather taunt the English.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

they might just prefer to be a province of the EU
Who knows.