Alistair Carmichael, the UK's Scottish secretary, outside the BAE shipyard in Govan, Glasgow. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA
Alistair Carmichael, the Scottish secretary, has said a cross-border currency union between an independent
Scotland and the rest of the UK "would not work" for either country.
Carmichael
said that agreeing a legally binding deal to share the pound would mean
Scotland accepting the UK would set its interest rates, monetary policy
and borrowing, while the UK would be expected to underwrite Scotland's
banks.
The cabinet minister did not rule out a deal being struck, but
said on the Andrew Marr Show
on BBC1 that if Scotland voted for independence in September's
referendum it would be voting to leave all the UK's institutions,
including
sterling.
Pressed
by Marr on whether it was "ridiculous" to argue that Scotland had no
automatic right to use sterling after independence since the pound
belonged to Scotland too, Carmichael said: "We're not saying anything
about 'you can't have'.
"The fact is a currency union wouldn't
work. It wouldn't work for Scotland; it wouldn't work for the rest of
the United Kingdom."
He said the eurozone crisis had shown that
currency union needed close and successful political and economic
integration – the reverse of independence. The Czech and Slovak
governments had tried a currency union after they became independent,
but that only lasted a matter of weeks.
Carmichael's warnings
reflect a noticeable hardening of rhetoric by the anti-independence
campaign in the runup to publication on Tuesday of
Alex Salmond's 670-page white paper on independence.
The
Scottish government has said its aim would be to declare Scotland's
independence on 24 March 2016, which coincides with key dates in the
union of the Scottish and English crowns in 1603 and the union of the
parliaments in 1707.
Nicola Sturgeon,
the Scottish deputy first minister, said the document, which will also
be issued in iPad, Kindle and online editions, would be "the most
comprehensive and detailed blueprint of its kind ever published, not
just for Scotland but for any prospective independent country".
She
added: "It is a landmark document which sets out the economic, social
and democratic case for independence. It demonstrates Scotland's
financial strengths and details how we will become independent."
Speaking
on BBC1 show Sunday Politics, Sturgeon said a currency union was one of
a number of "reasonable, rational and responsible" proposals her
government would make in the white paper.
Scotland was England's
second largest trading partner after the US, she said. "A currency union
is overwhelmingly in the best interests of the UK. That is the rock
that the no campaign is foundering on."
She said she was
"exceptionally confident" that both countries would agree to share the
pound: if the UK was insisting that Scotland took a fair share of the
UK's debt, then Scotland was entitled to a fair share of its assets,
including sterling.
In the last few days, senior anti-independence
figures including Gordon Brown, the former prime minister, and Carwyn
Jones, the Welsh first minister, have rejected the proposed sterling
pact.
While George Osborne, the chancellor, and Ed Balls, the
shadow chancellor, have said a currency union would be highly unlikely,
Jones has said
Wales would likely try to block a currency pact because it would threaten the Welsh economy.
Brown, writing in the Daily Record on Saturday, said Salmond's
"badly thought through proposals will end up in instability, division and self-imposed colonialism".
The
Scottish National party's quest for a currency union is also causing
divisions within the yes campaign. The Scottish Green party, the SNP's
junior partner in the official Yes Scotland independence campaign, only
supports a sterling zone as a temporary measure before Scotland sets up
its own currency.
Colin Fox, leader of the Scottish Socialist
party, which is also involved in Yes Scotland, told Scotland on Sunday
that a sterling pact "renders ridiculous the idea that you have an
independent country". Margo MacDonald, the former SNP deputy leader,
said Scotland could not expect the UK to agree but would have to
negotiate.
Meanwhile, a Panelbase poll for the Sunday Times found
that while the gap between no and yes voters was close, at 38% in favour
of independence and 47% against, more of Scotland voters were worried
about the economic risks of leaving the UK.
Following warnings
last week from the Institute of Fiscal Studies that an independent
Scotland would face greater austerity than the UK for decades to come,
the Panelbase poll found 44% of voters thought Scotland would be worse
off after independence compared with 32% who said better off.
While
34% of voters thought independence would make no difference to their
own wealth, 26% said they would be £500 worse off, and 15% thought they
would be £500 better off.
Alistair Carmichael, the Scottish secretary, says shared
currency zones need more economic and political integration, not less
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