Plan to keep pound ‘infantile’

A FORMER deputy leader of the SNP has claimed that Alex Salmond’s ‘infantile and demeaning’ bid to keep the pound was key to the party’s referendum defeat.

Jim Fairlie, a leading figure in the party in the 1970s and 1980s, said the ‘currency union’ proposed by the Nationalists was the ‘one issue that sunk the Yes campaign more than any other’.

He said: ‘It was an insult to peoples’ intelligence to argue that a currency union would give Scots control of the economic levers we need, in order to run our own economy when not just the opposition were pointing out that allowing another country to control monetary policy, together with agreements on borrowing and spending, would deny us independence. The argument: “It is our pound as well as theirs” was infantile and demeaning. The failure to deal with the currency gave rise to several other concerns such as pensions, debt repayment, the flight of capital and companies to England, the EU and the euro.

‘Supporters were reduced to claiming the currency union was merely a “short term measure”, while the leadership was stating they expected/ hoped it would last for many years. It is astonishing that the leadership allowed themselves and therefore the campaign, to enter the fight so obviously unprepared for the opposing arguments.

‘The obvious answer for any country renewing its status as a nation state, is to have its own currency, which it can then manage as it sees fit. Why that option was never discussed, even to explain why the leadership rejected it, was never explained.’