The Scottish Currency Group’s conference in Dunfermline at the weekend will be marked as a milestone in the campaign for Scottish Independence. It was the moment when a serious question that has dogged the campaign for over a decade was answered in the way that can no longer be dismissed by any similarly serious or sincere commentators. “What currency would an independent Scotland use?”
The answer, provided by Prof. Thibault Laurentjoye of Aalborg University who has also produced similar work for an independent Wales, is that an independent Scotland should use its own currency and that that currency can and should be set up so that it is operating from day one of independence.
His paper tackles the subject in a level of detail that far surpasses others who have written on the subject – including Common Weal, though he references our work within his own – and lays out all of the technical details required to set up a new currency from managing exchange rates and reserves, setting up banking and payment infrastructure, transferring important liabilities such as mortgages and pensions, and dealing with the case against Scotland having its own currency by responding to issues raised such as transaction costs or the possibility that Scotland is too wee to manage its own separate and stable currency.
This new paper from Prof. Laurentjoye sets a benchmark not just for those who support independence but also for those who wish to campaign against it. There is nowhere left for the pro-Union campaign to push back on this issue other than a simple opinion of dissent despite the evidence.
There is also nowhere left for the Scottish Government to hide on their inaction on the underpinnings of their model for independence. Work produced by or for the Government or SNP in recent years, from the “Growth Commission” of 2018 to the more recent “Building a New Scotland White Papers”, have all lacked the rigour that the independence campaign needs not only to give confidence to activists who are campaigning but also to give confidence to the 5-15% of voters who consistently tell us that the main barrier preventing them from crossing from “No” to “Yes” isn’t ideological or philosophical, but simply that they don’t believe that we’ve done the work that needs to be done.
This has implications for us too. As Prof. Richard Murphy pointed out in his review of the weekend’s conference, we have work to do on the other aspects of independence beyond currency and that’s where Common Weal’s Prospectus for a New State comes in. Here, you can watch an overview of what the Prospectus will cover and why it is important to cover them. In short, Scotland lacks many of the institutions that an independent nation will need to run itself such as the Central Bank required to manage our independent currency but also things like our constitution and aspects of our civil service. Our Prospectus seeks to identify as many of these as we can and show how they can also be made ready for day one of independence.
We’re entering the final stages of our crowdfunder to support this work so if you would like to or would like to share the link with someone you know, you can find more details about the project and how to donate at commonweal.scot/crowdfunder
The UK is also entering the final stages of its current incarnation. The act of preparing for the next stage is the thing that will help bring it about.