Claim:
After independence, the currency won't have to change.
Facts:
Although this seems astonishing, sterling is a fully
convertible currency, which means that there is no barrier to anybody adopting
it as their currency of convenience, even if the rUK doesn't want them to. And there is precedence for this. Australia used sterling until 1966 (New Zealand until 1967), and the Australian dollar was pegged to Sterling until 1971. Ireland, despite being completely independent since the 1920s, also pegged to sterling, decimalising at the same time as sterling and only unlinking in 1979. Smaller economies, such as Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, continue to do so to this day.
Keeping sterling in a currency union would also suit the rest of the UK.
Kicking Scotland out of sterling would mean an end to it as a petrocurrency,
backed up by hard assets.
This is a different situation to two vastly differing economies like Greece and Germany sharing the
Euro. The overall mix and health of the Scottish and rUK economies are broadly
similar, with the Scottish economy appearing, on many metrics like balance of payments, GDP per head, or post-independence deficit, to be healthier.
There is of course the issue that Scotland might have no formal influence on the policy of the Bank of England, or that it could set interest
rates that do not suit Scotland. No change there then.
Whether we would want to keep sterling in the medium to
long term as the economies diverge is another question, but for the first few
years of independence, it makes sense - on both sides - to keep the existing
arrangement.
