Rest of the UK (England, Northern Ireland and Wales).
Scottish Independence Referendum |OT| 18 September 2014 [Up: NO wins]
- Thread starter Ape Gone Insane
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Rest of the UK (England, Northern Ireland and Wales).
rUK stands for "Rest of the UK".
QuicheFontaine
Member
Yes, and the Chancellor even listed that as an option in his speech in April:
"An independent Scotland could:
adopt the pound unilaterally, just as Panama uses the US dollar;"
But feel free to keep bringing it up, as if anyone has suggested otherwise.
Edit:
UK Polling Report is a good website that's frequently updated with the latest polls (not just Indyref, but voting intention for next year's GE as well). Predicting these things is always tricky but the overall trend over many polls taken last year and this seem to be pointing towards No winning. If you'd prefer No to win, I wouldn't be too worried.
To be fair, I think a lot of people don't understand the difference between a currency union and just using the pound. this hasn't been helped by the SNPs campaign of "It's our pound and we'll keep it".
A currency union means that the RUK is responsible for bailing out Scotland should its finances go balls up. Should independence currently happen then it would leave Scotland with a finance industry that is far too large for a country of its size - Scotland would not be able to deal with its banks going bust. A currency union would mean that the RUK would step in and bail out those banks instead.
Weirdly enough, the rest of the UK is not keen on paying to ensure that Scotland can keep a finance industry that normally would never exist in a country of that size. It really is having your cake and eating it at this point.
A currency union means that the RUK is responsible for bailing out Scotland should its finances go balls up. Should independence currently happen then it would leave Scotland with a finance industry that is far too large for a country of its size - Scotland would not be able to deal with its banks going bust. A currency union would mean that the RUK would step in and bail out those banks instead.
Weirdly enough, the rest of the UK is not keen on paying to ensure that Scotland can keep a finance industry that normally would never exist in a country of that size. It really is having your cake and eating it at this point.
It should be pointed out that using a foreign currency doesn't mean you get to mint said currency. So if Scotland adopts the GBP unilaterally they would have to make do with whatever amount they already have in circulation with no means of buying more.
That's what Ecuador is doing with USD. They issue the "centavo" which is equal in value to USD cent coins but they are dependent on US-issued banknotes and larger denomination coins.
It's far from ideal and Ecuador is looking for a way back to a domestic currency.
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/20...arallel-currency-to-dollar-straitjacket-.html
That's what Ecuador is doing with USD. They issue the "centavo" which is equal in value to USD cent coins but they are dependent on US-issued banknotes and larger denomination coins.
It's far from ideal and Ecuador is looking for a way back to a domestic currency.
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/20...arallel-currency-to-dollar-straitjacket-.html
Bailing out an Atlantic Isles state? Impossible!
Financial Services represent 9% of Scotland's economy versus 22% of London's, and 10.8% of the whole of the England's, in 2009.
Osiris
I permanently banned my 6 year old daughter from using the PS4 for mistakenly sending grief reports as it's too hard to watch or talk to her
It's quite dishonest of you to find and link to an early pre-bailout article with speculation over the terms and to not link to a later article that would specifically lay out that it was eventually made as a loan.
There is also a huge difference between a decision made voluntarily and a requirement. Should iScotland be in a currency union with the rUK, the rUK would be forced into bailing out iScotland should bad times hit again, while iScotland's economy wouldn't be big enough to do the opposite.
No one has said anything about denying iScotland assets. No one. Assets would be divvied up post independence as a matter of international law. That's absolutely fine and will happen should a yes vote take place. Currency is not an asset. Furthermore, this isn't debt that's been forced on Scotland by some oppressive regime. It's not odious debt. It's debt that's been accrued to, in part, build schools and hospitals in Scotland, to pay public servant's wages, to build infrastructure in Scotland etc. iScotland not taking their share of that debt would poison relations with the rUK for decades, and kill their reputation on the markets.
And you're right, anyone can use any currency. Any nation can abandon the idea of having it's own currency and adopt another nation's currency. iScotland could use the Pound, the Euro, the Dollar or the Angolan Kwanza if it so desired. There are a whole host of reasons why that doesn't happen very often though. As the Scottish Government's own fiscal commission said
Scottish Government Fiscal Commission Report said:
The debt is on the UK pound. If we don't get the benefit of using the currency why should we pay the debts associated with it? The UK Govt is responsible for the debt, the debt wouldn't be defaulted the rest of the UK would have to shoulder the full thing or the UK credit rating would be trashed.
A shared currency is a shared asset along with the liabilities. If the rUK wants to claim the currency as exclusively theirs the debt is the same.
MasterLeePhD
Member
The Wings over Scotland website should be added to the OT as a resource.
CyclopsRock
Member
What are all these assets everyone keeps talking about? The vast majority of the UK public spending - and therefore the accrual of debt - is not on trident and tanks. It's on direct payments to people, or indirect payments in the form of local services (schools, hospitals etc). The *vast* majority is spent this way. So when people talk about Scotland "walking away" from the debt, are they saying so because they think they didn't receive this money, or are they saying so because they don't care that they did?
The debt isn't "on the Pund". What on Earth is that even supposed to mean? The debt is owed by the UK. If you want UK assets you damn well have to be prepared to shoulder some of the debt used to build those assets too.
And again, a currency isn't an asset. It's a legal tender issued by the Bank of England which is the central bank of the United Kingdom. It's not shared. It's controlled by the UK. You want in on that, you negotiate a currency union with the British government.
I'm getting the impression that some people seriously think that if Scotland votes for independence everything north of border will magically transfer into ownership of the new Scottish government so they don't count things like hospitals, infrastructure and government buildings as UK assets despite the fact that they obviously are.
Lol. Good luck with that.
Maybe if they kick and scream and scream they'll get a currency union?
That might work too.
They could threaten to take their ball home too, get some real leverage in their pathetic argument.
Really , why ?
The ramblings of a racist, transphobic and bigoted unemployed games reviewer who doesn't even live in Scotland has no place in the debate.
The Bank of England was nationalised in the middle of the 20th century. It's a state asset.
Great, we'll cut 1/10th of the Bank of England out the ground and send it up to Scotland.
CharmingCharlie
Member
Nah it is more like "what is Scotland's is Scotland's and what is the UK's is 10% of Scotland's and give us a currency union because we want to go on a huge spending spree and we are going to completely undercut the UK in corporation tax, but hey we want the UK to pick up the bill if it all fucks up big time".
I get that Scotland wants independence, hell I live in Yorkshire so I don't particularly have a great love of Westminster myself. But people have to accept it is FULL independence they are voting for, not some cod-independence where Scotland gets everything it wants and saddles the UK with everything else.
Or we can do both England and Scotland a favour and facilitate a system that allows both access to Sterling, which is precisely what will happen when the Scots vote Yes.
Ignore the emotion that Unionist weirdos are putting on the issue. It just plain makes sense from both sides to take a pragmatic view for the short to medium term.
I don't see ANYONE kicking up a fuss with our relationship and shared systems with Ireland. So why should Scotland be treated any differently? Frankly it just reeks of desperation from the minority who call themselves British and want to make this as painful as possible to both sides for what?
I have to admire your ability to utterly fail to engage with *anyone* on this issue beyond parroting the same talking points.
Even when it is a manifesto commitment, even when the poll shows overwhelming opposition to a currency union in the RUK, you maintain the line of 'it's happening, everyone knows it is, it's just unionists lying'.
At this point, it's an article of faith rather than anything grounded in any sort of reality. And the fact you avoid the issue repeatedly shows that.
Even when it is a manifesto commitment, even when the poll shows overwhelming opposition to a currency union in the RUK, you maintain the line of 'it's happening, everyone knows it is, it's just unionists lying'.
At this point, it's an article of faith rather than anything grounded in any sort of reality. And the fact you avoid the issue repeatedly shows that.
Because it *is* just Unionist politicking. There's too much money to be lost by not facilitating it. There are too many concessions we English will want to get that won't happen otherwise.
It will happen because we will lose too much by not letting it.
Don't get me wrong, I admire your ability to personify the system such that it's prepared to cut off its nose to spite its face.
QuicheFontaine
Member
If you really believe this you should honestly get down the bookies and put some moeny on it. You will get some good odds!
Well that's not very nice. As far as I can tell it's not the unionists that are getting all emotional.
Are you sure about that? I just put "british identity poll" into google and it looks like most English people at least consider themselves British first. If you meant Scots then fair enough, most of them do seem to consider themselves Scottish first.
Extra emotional emphasis is not evidence. There is plenty of evidence showing action being taken to stop a currency union. Do you have any evidence that one is being planned? At all?
CyclopsRock
Member
I like to do a little test if ever I think that a claim is actually a false claim: I ask myself "OK, if this claim were true, how would it be presented differently? What other things would be happening that are currently not?" If the answer is "none" then I'm forced to acknowledge that at best I'm making a sensible but without-evidence counterclaim, and at worst that I'm flat out wrong.
So my question to Frag is this: imagine for a moment you're wrong, and that there won't be a currency union. What would be different in the debate? What would someone be saying that they haven't, or vice versa? How would it look different in a scenario where a currency union won't occur?
So my question to Frag is this: imagine for a moment you're wrong, and that there won't be a currency union. What would be different in the debate? What would someone be saying that they haven't, or vice versa? How would it look different in a scenario where a currency union won't occur?
If I gambled I probably would.
Not true; 70% of people in England identify *as* English. "British" as a primary identity is almost exclusively held among immigrants, which tallies with the gap in the image below around London...
EDIT: Actually, that's a pretty good topic for debate. Are we doing immigrant communities a disservice to promoting a "Britishness" there that just further alienates them from the English/Scottish/Welsh communities they live in? Is Britishness becoming an identity for foreigners that's hindering their integration?
And the census:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_290558.pdf - Page 10 and 11
Well the reality of the English and Scottish economies would have to be not as it is.
Who gains by pretending there won't be a currency union? British Unionists.
Who loses by actually preventing a currency union? English and Scots.
Normally I'm prepared to accept that human stupidity - and the capacity for Westminster to fuck up - has no upper bound; but I just don't see it happening here the way Giddeon et al claim.
QuicheFontaine
Member
Fair enough, my quick search merely turned up this Guardian article, and I'm not really sure where they got their numbers from. I'll happily defer to the ONS survey as being more authoritative.
I can't really see that being the case. If someone hates immigrants, it's probably because they look/act/dress/speak/etc. differently. I've never heard of an immigrant being discriminated against by an English nationalist because they "identified as British".
But it's an extra barrier isn't it? Another thing to separate the "us" from the "them". Anyway - probably a topic for the "UK" poltiics thread.
Right. Me, the entire political system, and the majority of voters in the UK are all saying this because we are petty, and should Scotland vote for independence then there will be a huge change in public opinion across the board and we'll agree to a currency union because we'll have seen the light.
Or maybe it's because currency unions are often flawed, that having a union that means the RUK would be being out Scotland next financial crisis is utterly unpalatable, and that being held hostage by someone threatening to not pay their debts is hardly a vote winner.
There are of course advantages to a currency union. But there are also a huge number of disadvantages, and 'Independence light' where Scotland gets everything it wants and none of the downsides is simply unpalatable to the rest of the UK. The majority of English and Welsh voters feel the same it seems, and I don't understand why you keep hand waving that away and imply that it's all silly nonsense. So far there is precisely zero evidence that you are right, and a vast amount of evidence and logic behind you being wrong and yet you refuse to even contemplate it.
It's not working as a strategy for Alex Salmond right now and it's not working as a talking point in is thread ever I would suggest.
Nicktendo86
Member
What are the actual arguments for the rUK agreeing to a currency union? What would be in it for us? That Scotland would accept debts it rightly owes? I just don't understand why the yes camp assumes a currency union would just happen when there are many, many arguments against it.
Well firstly Scotland has none of that debt, the "United Kingdom" has it and has acknowledged that whatever happens it will service it. And given the "United Kingdom" insists that it will remain the continuing state (despite the repealing of the Act of Union that created it) with all those lovely extant treaties and memberships... that's kind of to be expected.
But as to why it makes the sense it does? Because it's stupidity of the highest order to expose the English economy to significant transaction costs and uncertainties that would come from a separate Scottish currency. And we'd bail out the Scottish economy with or without a currency union (like we did in Ireland) so we might as well get the benefits that go along with that risk.
Plus, it's great leverage to avoid or mitigate the shitstorm that'd come from losing the Scottish Trident and other military bases.
QuicheFontaine
Member
I know right? Salmond is treating it like meeting their share of debt obligations would be a quid pro quo for the currency union.
Quid pro quo, geddit?
...
I'll get me coat.
Edit:
I think that's a funny way of looking at it. As Cyclops said, that money has already been spent, some of it on Scotland. So, yes a proportion of it is Scottish debt if we're going to start dividing the country up. As to what a "fair" way to divide it would be? Well, I feel we're never going to get an actual answer to that question.
And again with the "insists"? I addressed this in a post up the page: the rUK simply would be the successor state, going by precedents set by other countries.
Thinking back to my time studying Optimal Currency Areas the benefits are:
1. Currency convenience
2. Price comparability
3. Cross border investment
I'm in partial agreement with Frag here in that eventually the rUK government would back down and form a currency union with an independent Scotland but this could take many years, even decades before the political landscape allows it. It looks like all major parties will come out against it in their manifestos and I dont believe they will renege on that promise within the next parliament - either way, thats a big risk for Scotland to take! That leaves Scotland in a strange middle ground where they have to work something else out in the mean time.
CyclopsRock
Member
The "UK" didn't bail out Ireland, though, did we? We gave them a loan as part of a wider EU policy in which we not only contributed a small amount but we will also get it back. Any potential bailout as part of a currency union would surely be larger? Not only that but it doesn't take Into account the potential cost to the UK economy of having a different interest rate/BoE activity vs if we weren't.
One and the same. Look up Irish Bailout, Greek Bailout... Which is why it's a bit silly to say we don't want to be exposed to that kind of risk. We already *are* exposed to it. We will support the Scottish economy when it is independent for the same reason we preferentially supported the Irish economy: it's in our self interest.
Don't see that being an issue. Interest rates have always been tailored to England's needs and will remain so.
Then why does getting a currency union matter at all, and why are the SNP pushing for it? If what's best for Scotland is entirely ignored by the BoE and presumably still will be after Independence why not just use the pound unilaterally? Surely that way they get all the same benefits without having to negotiate for it.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I think I have a solution that makes everyone happy! What the rUK should do is to gift Scotland full control over the pound and Bank of England, then float a new currency and default on all the debt denominated in pounds that the rUK has.
Nicktendo86
Member
Sun poll today has no with a 22 point lead.
Circle Jerk
Member
Petty Unionists letting their emotions get in their way clearly
CyclopsRock
Member
Haha, all the adverts in this thread for me are for buying gold. The Google AdWords algorithm has spoken.
I'm a little surprised at how inept Salmond/yes campaign have been in allowing the currency issue to become the biggest problem in the independence debate. They've been completely out-politicked by No.
I'm also surprised they haven't made a bigger deal out of the NHS privatisation via the backdoor that was started under labour, enthusiastically adopted by the tories and completely unopposed by the lib dems. The NHS seems to be close to a lot of voters hearts and there's an opportunity going begging which could tar all three of the major parties.
Perhaps it's time they learnt from 'project fear'?
NB. I know they have spoken about privatisation of the NHS but it's been happening for a while already, not something that has yet to happen. Maybe voters just don't give a shit.
On an anecdotal front, I've just got back from the Cairngorms and I saw plenty of yes posters, stickers etc in windows and on cars but only 2 No stickers.
I'm also surprised they haven't made a bigger deal out of the NHS privatisation via the backdoor that was started under labour, enthusiastically adopted by the tories and completely unopposed by the lib dems. The NHS seems to be close to a lot of voters hearts and there's an opportunity going begging which could tar all three of the major parties.
Perhaps it's time they learnt from 'project fear'?
NB. I know they have spoken about privatisation of the NHS but it's been happening for a while already, not something that has yet to happen. Maybe voters just don't give a shit.
On an anecdotal front, I've just got back from the Cairngorms and I saw plenty of yes posters, stickers etc in windows and on cars but only 2 No stickers.
Isn't the NHS in Scotland devolved to the Scottish Government already?
CyclopsRock
Member
I think most people don't care about the NHS as long as it's still free at the point of use - which it obviously is. The fact that the building you're getting your "free" liver transplant in is owned by Tesco rather than the government is probably not something many people give two shits about, broadly. Other than some shouty guy on Question Time with a Yorkshire accent.
I'm from London UK, and I'm just interesting in asking this to my Scottish brothers.
Are you sick or even care at all that a bunch of "celebs" made a letter and all signed it asking you to stay together?
Like I was watching the news and saw what they'd done, and I just laughed as to be perfectly honest, I would find it even more appealing to leave with stunts like that being pulled.
It's not even like they make a Valid point they're just using the
OH I'M FAMOUS, LISTEN TO ME, DO WHAT I SAY.
I find it insulting.
Also GG on the commonwealth games, they were rad.
Are you sick or even care at all that a bunch of "celebs" made a letter and all signed it asking you to stay together?
Like I was watching the news and saw what they'd done, and I just laughed as to be perfectly honest, I would find it even more appealing to leave with stunts like that being pulled.
It's not even like they make a Valid point they're just using the
OH I'M FAMOUS, LISTEN TO ME, DO WHAT I SAY.
I find it insulting.
Also GG on the commonwealth games, they were rad.
That'll be why then! Wasn't sure and was too lazy to look it up.
CyclopsRock
Member
If I were famous - and mark my words, one day I will be - I'd just spout my mouth off about basically everything. Why not? If people want to stick a microphone in front of my face when I say something, let em!
Care to tell the French and the Germans they're not independent?
I don't care, but both sides like to bring out the celebs when they can.
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