Video Special: The Case for a Currency Union
On Monday SNP politicians will make the case for leaving our currency union. The best advocates against that course of action will be those same politicians.
This is a short and sweet edition following on from the bumper edition which set the scene for the SNP’s government’s new economic plan for leaving the UK.
On Monday Nicola Sturgeon will, for the first time as a government, formally commit a separate Scotland to leaving the pound and setting up a new currency. There will likely be a transition through years of Sterlingisation - a truly terrible idea that may well dominate the debate when the plan is published. This may suit the SNP who hope that they can deceive voters into mistaking the informal use of the pound without a real central bank for the economic insurance policy we have now.
The question of how long Scotland will spend in Sterlingisation is a crucial one. Too fast a transition and the austerity to balance Scotland’s finances before launching a new currency would be appalling. Too slow a transition and Scotland, as the only advanced economy without a central bank or currency of our own, will slide into a liquidity crisis. However, the final destination deserves as much attention as the journey.
A separate currency would be a bad idea for many reasons. I’m not going to present any of them. Instead, I’m going to leave it up to Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney to explain why a separate currency would be bad for the cost of living, jobs, trade, and mortgages:
They make the case better than I ever could. I hope on Monday they end up arguing with themselves.
The Rules Are Changing
One of the things that will be interesting on Monday is to see whether concerns about the costs of changing currency, erecting borders and cutting spending are met with the usual lazy response from the SNP. In the week when Liz Truss was forced to sack her chancellor, it feels like the air is finally coming out of the anti-expert balloon. Truss, you will remember, was warned that her economic plans were dangerous and her response was to dismiss the concerns as “project fear” and “scaremongering”. Word-for-word the same response given by Nicola Sturgeon hundreds of times over the last few years.
When The Telegraph is running headlines like “Project Fear Was Right All Along” it must be an uncomfortable time for nationalists. Will Scotland be the last part of the UK where leaders cling to this lazy populism?
Culture Corner
As it’s Saturday night, I thought I’d share something internationalists that you can dance to. Below is Animal Collective’s 2016 song in praise of a cosmopolitan “everywhere place” and against lazy prejudices based on borders. Enjoy!