Independent Scotland would face currency problem - Osborne

[dipsydoodle]

(Reuters) - Chancellor George Osborne said on Sunday it would not be straightforward for an independent Scotland to keep the pound as its currency, as proposed by those campaigning for the country to break away from the United Kingdom next year.

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Pro-independence campaigners say Scotland would keep the pound, at least in the early years of independence, and could later hold a sovereign debate on whether to switch to its own currency.

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The central government in London will publish on Tuesday a detailed analysis of the implications on currency of Scottish independence. The article by Osborne and Alexander sought to make the case against independence ahead of that report.

It said that if an independent Scotland kept the pound and thus had its monetary policy set by the Bank of England, that would amount to "handing over to what would become a foreign government key decisions over the Scottish economy".

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/04/20/uk-britain-scotland-currency-idUKBRE93J0K020130420

[Divernan]

1. Some background - because most Americans don't follow foreign news.

Three basic points re Scotland's referendum:

The electorate in Scotland will vote on whether it should become an independent nation.
The poll will take place on Thursday, 18 September, 2014.
Voters will be asked a single yes/no question: "Should Scotland be an independent country?

With nearly 18 months to go until the referendum, this will be quite a drawn-out battle.
The latest poll I saw broke down to 46% opposed, 36% in favor, and 18 % undecided. There is a significant gender gap - opposition stands at 52% for women; 40% for men. The gender gap appears to be greater than ever, particularly among younger voters. While an absolute majority (51%) of males under 55 favour independence, men over 55 and women of all ages remain opposed.

Who gets to vote?
Essentially, everyone over the age of 16 who lives in Scotland.

The voter "franchise", as it's known, is largely the same as for a Scottish Parliament and council elections, with the addition of lowering the voting age from 18.

That means the 800,000 Scots who live in other parts of the UK don't get a vote, while the 400,000 people from elsewhere in Britain who live in Scotland do.

All the main players on both sides of the debate agreed this is the fairest way to do things.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13326310
___________________________
So, Dipsy, what's your opinion on this? It's certainly a complex issue in many respects, not least of which are the economic aspects, membership in the EU and all the treaties to which the UK is party. I think if I were Scottish, I would negotiate for some more devolved powers for the Scottish parliament at Holyrood, but vote to keep the kingdom united. What say you?

For myself, with thanks to Robert Browning, I'm thinking "Oh to be in England, now that April's here . . ."
I know in Kent, the fields are bright green, leaves are budding, the little white lambs are beginning to gambol, and the hedgehogs are hogging (or whatever they do).

[dipsydoodle]

2. That means......

In the UK where we vote is solely dependent on where we live - to vote you have to be living at a recognised address and on the electoral register at that address. That's done annually here. There are other merits on being on the register too - applications for credit etc.

There is no option of more devolved powers - that's been avoided. Its simply stay or go.

Salmond decided they'd get auto EU entry but its already become clear that don't follow. Entry requires acceptance by all member states not just the UK who sincerely I doubt would oppose it. The issues ties in with similar situations in Spain re. Catalonia and Italy re. Venice. Would be comical if they left and did join the EU and also joined Schengen - we'd need border controls.

I don't actually care what they do - up to them. I do however personally believe they'll stay part of the UK.

[pennylane100]

7. I am curious about the gender gap.

I wonder why there is such a gap. Do you have any info on that.

[Divernan]

9. "Mind the Gap: Gender & the Debate Over Scotland's Future"

I came across this in-depth examination of the Scottish gender gap, on previous votes re devolution as well as independence. I envy the Scots their intense, country-wide debate on the future of their society. Compare that to the US - where the masses are distracted by playing Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook or following with bated breath who will get voted off some reality island TV show. I'm a judge of elections for my local community, and I anticipate a less than 20% turnout for next month's primary.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/gerry-hassan/mind-gap-gender-and-debate-over-scotland%E2%80%99s-future

Yet, the above points to one tentative observation which can be seen in the gap on the tax raising powers in the 1997 referendum: that more women than men are influenced by practical and personal financial factors. And we have some evidence that this is more so with the independence question; namely the now infamous poll which showed Scots opinion was fluid enough to swing one way or the other over the princely sum of £500 per year better or worse off. Women went from 13% support for independence if worse off, to 63% support if they thought were better off (the male equivalent figures are 29% and 67%) (4).

Thus women even more than men have as well as a conservatism, also a fluid, flexible attitude which clearly isn’t consistently pro-independence, but nor is it firmly and passionately pro-union. Neither ‘Braveheart’ nationalist, nor ‘Union Jack’ patriot. However, the cautiousness of many women is underlined by the fact that apart from gender, the forces of pro-union opinion are those who gain most from the existing state of Scotland: the middle class, professional groups, and those with most income, education and status.

This has to be put in a sense of history, where Scotland and Scottish politics have come from, and where we are. Scotland has in the past been a phenomenally masculinised society, shaped at points by the power, collective identities and poverty which went with unrestrained capitalism and its heavy industries. Scotland between 1918 and 1997 only elected 23 women MPs, managing not that long ago, in the 1983 election, to elect a solitary female MP, Dame Judith Hart, for Labour.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

3. Scottish independence would make government borrowing problematic

This means not having access to their own printing press and any public sector borrowing would need to be arranged with foreign governments (UK), bond markets or international institutions (IMF, EU).

While I think Scotland could be a viable state, I think independence would be an extraordinary expense to the point of being unjustifiable.

I hold no delusions that the SNP will spend "Scotland's oil" on social democracy either, I judge Slimy Salmond by the company he keeps (Rupert Murdoch, Brian Souter) and suspect he will blow the oil money on Irish-style low corporation tax rates.

He still supports the discredited Celtic Tiger economic model. If Scottish Labour hadn't turned into a Blairite mess then the SNP wouldn't have got near the levers of power in Holyrood.

[LeftishBrit]

4. Yes, sadly Salmond seems to be No. 4 in the list of party leaders who have dragged their parties

disastrously to the right.

(1) Thatcher (not that the Tories were ever progressive, but she made them much more extreme); (2) Blair; (3) Clegg; (4) Salmond.

In my humble opinion - which would differ from the majority of DU - (5) is Galloway, confirming my view, expressed a few years ago on DU, that 'if there was a one-member independent party, it would sooner or later be dragged to the right by its leader'.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

5. Galloway was always opposed women's right to choose

A hangover from his social catholic background.

It's a shame that such a skilled orator and anti-imperialist as Galloway has not had the necessary humility to self-reflect on his regressive attitudes to women.

[LeftishBrit]

6. Also...

he was always something of a mirror-image-ist as I call it. He opposed Bush 'n Blair, which was quite right of him; but often supported dodgy right-wing types just because they were opposed to Bush 'n Blair.

Which brings us back to, well, to Blair. What a sorry excuse for a Labourite. His enthusiasm for Thatcher is all too obvious.

[non sociopath skin]

8. The ultimate opportunist politician

A more ruthless and successful edition of David Owen.

The Skin

[dipsydoodle]

10. UK says "no clear reason" to let independent Scotland use the pound

(Reuters) - The euro zone's experience of countries sharing a currency but not a government shows there is no clear case for an independent Scotland to use the pound, the Treasury said on Tuesday.

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But in a report on Tuesday, the Treasury said there was no clear case for the United Kingdom to agree to a formal currency union with an independent Scotland, which would have an economy of a similar size to New Zealand's.

"The economic rationale for the UK to agree to enter a formal sterling union with a separate state is not clear," said the report, which was prepared by non-partisan civil servants.

"The recent experience of the euro area has shown that it is extremely challenging to sustain a successful formal currency union without close fiscal integration and common arrangements for the resolution of banking sector difficulties," it added.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/04/22/uk-britain-scotland-idUKBRE93L1CI20130422

See also http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-22251103