Scottish Independence: Professor Jeremy Peat says that there is ‘No obvious currency choice’, open your eyes, it is staring you in the face, it is called the Scottish pound, SNP don’t want the pound, they want to join the Euro, and that is pretty obvious Professor!

Dear All

One of the fatal errors of the Alex Salmond independence referendum was not to back a Scottish currency which would be pegged to the value of Sterling.

It was a major blunder, in reality how could anyone think it was credible that the United Kingdom would set up a currency zone with Scotland and share the pound. It was a policy that was born out of stupidity and having done no work.

Paying the price now!

I have never believed the Alex Salmond and unpopular Nicola Sturgeon that they were supporters of the pound, rather I saw this as a stepping stone into the Euro, they would justify this by means of constant grievance over ‘bad terms’ from Westminster.

Salmond would then step forward and say the Euro is the solution, and present himself as a ‘man of vision’ looking out for Scots.

As well all know, that isn’t the case by a long chalk.

The odd thing is that the ‘joke ‘of currency union which is dead, officially dead is still being touted as having value.

Professor Jeremy Peat, former chief economist for the Royal Bank of Scotland, ex-Treasury and Scottish Office economist, said the Scottish Government’s Plan A of a continuing currency union cannot yet be ruled out.

It has been, perhaps the Professor missed the UK agreement to underwrite all UK debt after Salmond’s threat. That single act, told the political community that No means No!

Professor Jeremy Peat does get it right when he says using sterling without a currency union is seen as “wholly implausible, dangerous and highly unlikely to be optimal”.

That leaves only one sensible option, a Scottish pound.

Or the basket case of ‘dollarisation’, using Sterling without a lender of last resort to bail out the banks in the event of a collapse.

And Peats also says what I said right at the start about the SNP’s future plans, that the euro “might appear desirable in the fullness of time” for Salmond and Sturgeon.

Although he says that there is nothing to stop Scotland establishing its own currency, he rather forgets that there isn’t the political will and there is now no time to float this as an alternative.

Alex Salmond’s time has run out!

As I said previously, all the work done in this Scottish independence campaign has been totally wasted.

Right across the board, everything is meaningless because there is no work done, no vision and no plan.

Peat added on the issue of currency union:

“It is presumably best not to rule this option out until the vote has taken place and some political dust has settled.”

What he fails to grasp is that every party going into the 2015 Westminster election currently having said no will reaffirm that pledge. If the new 2015 Westminster Government broke that pledge they would have made themselves a lame duck government in the eyes of the rest of the UK.

Next election, they would be out of public office.

Nick Clegg lied on tuition fees and sunk his whole party, what does the Professor think will happen to the first party to go against the wishes of the people of the UK who are firmly saying no?

Political meltdown!     

And less we forget, taking Scotland into the Euro would be a disaster of epic proportions, sadly the SNP don’t care what damage they do to achieve their aims.

Recently I read the Scottish Government had reneged on cancer drugs for vulnerable people, I guess we all know what that means!

Game over!

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University