Why no "Plan B"?

[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:

Comments

[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.

[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.

[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.