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ggreig: (Western gentleman)
[personal profile] ggreig

As a supporter of Scottish independence, even I sometimes get frustrated that the SNP don't explicitly say what their "Plan B" is (implicitly it's always seemed fairly clear - a currency union isn't the only way of keeping the pound).

Whatever you may think of Alex Salmond, he's not daft, so there had to be a reason for him consistently failing to give the clarification that obviously many people want. I would have guessed that it was something to do with maintaining the strength of his negotiation position after a "Yes". That wasn't a million miles off, but it wasn't wholly right. Here's Alex Salmond giving the clearest explanation I've seen of why the SNP are taking the position they are:

Date: 2014-08-09 08:54 am (UTC)
andrewducker: (Default)
From: [personal profile] andrewducker
It strikes me that the main reason for not saying "Well, if they absolutely refuse, then we'll do X." is that then all of the discussion becomes "Well, I don't like X, let's talk about that in detail."

And as they have no intention of X, all it does is muddy the waters and open the door to other negative campaigning.

Date: 2014-08-09 10:49 am (UTC)
drplokta: (Default)
From: [personal profile] drplokta
If Salmond wants the world to recognise Scotland's commitment to a sterling union, he has to drop his plan for Scotland to join the EU, since he's unlikely to get an opt-out from the Euro and thus joining the EU is incompatible with a sterling currency union. That's a much more important lack of commitment than having a plan B would be.

Date: 2014-08-09 12:59 pm (UTC)
drplokta: (Default)
From: [personal profile] drplokta
I fear you are too optimistic. In the event of a "yes" vote Scotland will be jettisoning itself from the EU on the date of its independence -- no one else will need to jettison it. So the EU will be contracting. There's already a precedent for this, in Algeria, which did not retain its EEC membership when it left France. I'm quite sure that Scotland will be able to rejoin the EU, and probably even jump the queue a bit, but it's extremely uncertain that it will be able to keep the UK's opt-outs, which will require unanimous consent from all 28 existing members.
Edited Date: 2014-08-09 01:00 pm (UTC)

Date: 2014-08-09 01:03 pm (UTC)
drplokta: (Default)
From: [personal profile] drplokta
Oh, and Iceland has never been an EU member, so I'm not sure what you mean when you say they took three years to "negotiate their way out". They were trying to get in for a while, but the process was complicated and time-consuming despite Iceland being a small northern European country that already met most of the requirements. I wonder who that reminds me of?

Date: 2014-08-15 11:00 am (UTC)
tobyaw: (Default)
From: [personal profile] tobyaw
Can’t help thinking that the referendum should be about the principle of independence.

All this talk about currency union and where there is a plan B is about implementation details, and would be resolved through negations later.

The debate shouldn’t get caught up in details (especially ones which are dependent on so many unknowns) — it should be tackling the big issues.

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