to wonder how Scotland's decision will affect england?

[LEMmingaround]

Just that really? If they do go their ownway how will it affect england?

Also will it open a can of worms with wales and northern Ireland?

If we had our own currency then yes.

The complaint the pro Indy camp used to make was that the UK was governed in England's interests only, because England was so much bigger than the rest of the UK combined. Accordingly, the logic of independence in Europe was that iScotland would be part of a political group in which no single member could predominate to the same extent.

I wasn't following the debate at the time, but I'd guess the logic for SNP support of Euro entry was along the same lines, i.e., membership of a currency governed in the interests of all its members, not just one big one, would result in a better outcome for Scotland.

Accordingly, the logic behind using sterling, either as part of a currency union or otherwise doesn't seem to be at all consistent with the reasoning set out above. Hence my view it's that it is a political gambit designed to get the Yes vote above 50% by retaining familiar thing that the cautious do not wish to lose. After all, one independent, iScotland could leave a currency union when it chose.

Of course once things settle down a bit, Scotland may wish to join the Euro, or even launch its own currency

And that's one major reason why CU wouldn't work for rUK and therefore won't happen.

An iScotland could set up a central bank still using the £. We could just take all our money back out of the BoE and set up our own central bank.

Purely as a central bank example, Panama informally uses the $ and has not one but central banks....

And that's one major reason why CU wouldn't work for rUK and therefore won't happen.

Why? Surely it'd be simpler for rUK to maintain current trading conditions, at least in the interim?

Different spending priorities is a huge issue, Salmond has said he intends to increase spending on health, education, social services, well, just about everywhere! He's also said that initially he would do this through increased borrowing, the Scottish and UK economies would diverge, you can't have currency union without economic union as has been proved by the Euro.

The implicit commitment of public funds in a sterling currency union would require an underpinning political commitment. And the strength of the political commitment to a currency union is key to its durability. Currency unions may unwind if they are perceived to be only temporary and as the Scottish Government’s White Paper points out, “it would, of course, be open to people in Scotland to choose a different arrangement in the future”.2 The euro area experience during the sovereign debt crisis illustrates the pressure that financial speculation can place on a government’s funding costs when there is uncertainty as to the future of the currency union. If the political commitment to the currency union is thought to be lacking or temporary, financial speculation can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Low market confidence in the political will to sustain the currency union can generate capital flight, reinforcing economic problems and the political pressure to exit. This was the case in the short-lived experience of the Czechoslovakian monetary union, which lasted 33 days following the separation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia

From this: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/279454/CM8815_2901849_SA_SterlingUnion_acc.pdf

Maybe (probably) I am being far too simplistic but wouldn't that be a good plan B, or even A, we use scottish pounds, like we currently do, pegged 1:1 with the UK pound therefore making trading nice and easy for scotland and rUK but also set up our own central bank who could be lender of last resort secured against maybe oil reserves as asset?

No, it has two government owned banks. They operate certain clearing house functions but they are not a central bank as far as I can tell.

You can't just set up a central bank printing someone else's currency. If you are saying we can just set up a bank with a large reserve of £ notes then sure, we can. But that's not a central bank in the traditional sense.

www.panama-bank-guide.com/panama-banks/state/

Xposted Wanksock. Currency pegging is very difficult to maintain in reality - it worked historically but the world was a very different place. Black Wednesday was a pretty good demonstration of what happens when pegging goes bad - and it wasn't 1:1.

I don't think there is a perfect answer. I just want to see the evidence that Yes have thought about this, have a proper back up plan. Be honest with us rather than treating us like children and selling us fairy tales.

Does anyone yet know what will happen to HBOS? It's currently 1.3tn in debt, roughly eight times Scottish GDP, obviously England will have to take its share of that debt but how much will that be?
According to Mark Carney HBOS will have to move south to England under EU rules as most of its assets are held there, will those rules even apply? Will Scotland even be a member of the EU?
Financial services employs around 150,000 people in Scotland, if they move south that's bad news for Scotland.
As Scotland will be a newly independent country, saddled with enormous debts what will its credit rating be? Will Scotland be able to afford to borrow the billions in increased spending promised by Salmond?

There are still more questions than answers.

lurker, I think the EU question has been gone into a few times on various threads and from what I can tell, the answer is not immediately. You have to apply to join the EU and that takes time. Plus there are other countries already in the queue. Plus some EU countries don't want to encourage splits in their own nations - Spain is apparently very opposed to granting Scotland membership, as they don't want to encourage the Catalans to go off and do their own thing.

Wanksock What kind of scandal/abuse has the scottish govt been involved in Chelsyhandy? Just genuinely interested

What, you mean apart from how they treat expert legal witnesses in the YouTube clip I posted a few pages back of the Parliament at work, and its constitutional lack of a second chamber to provide a check on its activites?

The Scottish Government (as opposed to what I said, Scottish politics) has studiously avoided getting involved i.e. doing anything about the scandal and frauds besetting City of Edinburgh Council, which are the subject of this petition to try and get it to actually do its job and investigate it:

you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/petition-for-a-public-inquiry-into-the-running-of-city-of-edinburgh-council

It lists the scandals as:-

"The Morton Hall Baby Ashes Scandal
The School Repairs Scandal and the Liberton Tragedy
The Tram Debacle
The Statutory Notice Scandal
The Flood defence overspend scandal which cost the taxpayer £30million
Planning Scandals allowing building on historic sites at Craighouse and other protected areas
Traffic Chaos scandal caused by dogma in the council transportation department"

Why are people so uninformed about whats going on in Scotland's capital city?

Ah. I was thinking the role of a central bank was mostly to hold sufficient assets to back a currency. Kind of like Scotland does now where it prints its own money, but holds reserves to the value of in BoE.

WRT bank bailouts they are done on the basis of countries of operation, so if HBOS needed a bailout the lions share of the cash would come from rUK. I'm not sure how it would work with debts, I'd guess that'd be a proiiblwm for the bank internally?

Lurkernowposter, I would need to do a bit more research but the head office/registered office situation is complicated because there's not really much in the way of precedent I don't think. Plus, HBOS is a part of Lloyds. But, I think this rule would catch them even if Scotland was out of the EU as it requires that the head offices be situated in the same Member State as their registered offices.

I think LBG has head office in London and registered office in Edinburgh, and RBS has both in Edinburgh. Not 100% sure.

Posting this again because the same questions keep being asked ie 'why does Scotland think it has any leverage re currency union'. Here is an explanation from The New Statesman. www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/02/flaw-osbornes-pre-emptive-strike-against-currency-union

I thought the SNP opposed the Edinburgh team project

I think using sex abuse scandals at Westminster as part of the Indy ref is very, very cheap.

Nope, it doesn't really answer the question any more than it did last time it was posted! It's based on the premise that neither would be the continuing state - I think that would be pretty hard to impose given that the rest of the UK hasn't voted. Now, if everyone had voted and decided to split it would have merit but Scotland can't enforce a new country on the rest of the UK. It can only take itself out.

It's certainly not a solid enough argument to justify ignoring the questions about alternatives.

Team? Tram

SNP stood on a tram opposition manifesto. They were defeated in Holyrood. In Edinburgh Council they more or less sat back and let the fiasco happen. The Government carried on handing over money with no adequate scrutiny until it was far too late to make any difference.

All the major parties come out badly from the tram project. It is a superb example of why Edinburgh Council should not be trusted to organise major projects.

Yes there was a great radio 4 programme about it a few years ago. How they awarded individual contracts for various bits of work and it just caused chaos because it was so hard to coordinate.

That ... and digging up an ancient historic city

I think using sex abuse scandals at Westminster as part of the Indy ref is very, very cheap.

I agree. Also pretty irrelevant, doesn't particularly impact how a country is run?

It's based on the premise that neither would be the continuing state - I think that would be pretty hard to impose given that the rest of the UK hasn't voted. Now, if everyone had voted and decided to split it would have merit but Scotland can't enforce a new country on the rest of the UK. It can only take itself out.

If Scotland is deemed t be a completely new state it has no "right" to assets in the rUK, continuation within rUK treaties etc. It also has no responsibility for the UK debt. Sounds a fair trade...

It also has no credit rating, no trade treaties, no tax treaties. It wouldn't be so great.