In the Largs & Millport Weekly News of 19th February I suggested that SNP MSP Kenny Gibson and myself could have a serious debate on referendum issues in the pages of the local paper. I proposed, out of politeness, that Mr Gibson should get the first shot, and that we start with his views on the hot topic of a currency union. Unfortunately Kenny Gibson hasn’t risen to the challenge, so it falls to me to begin the debate in the hope that he will change his mind and perhaps respond next week.

The SNP’s Plan A on a currency seems to be that (if there is a yes vote) we will leave the UK but continue to use the UK Pound in a currency union with the country we have just deserted. In my view this position has several weaknesses not least that the UK Government and the other political parties say they will not engage in a currency union because it has disadvantages for them and they would have great difficulty selling such an arrangement to their electorate. So the Nationalists’ Plan A is a non-starter. Such an arrangement would also give control of currency levers to a foreign country and the example of the Euro shows that for a currency union to work you need a fiscal and ultimately political union. So the SNP’s policy will not happen and if it did, it would be bad for the economy. On the intellectual level, why would any thinking person want to leave a currency union just to rejoin it with more onerous conditions, these conditions applied by the people we’ve just insulted by divorcing? It’s frankly nonsensical.

So it seems that Plan A, is dead in the water except in the minds of die-hard Nationalists who refuse to believe what the other parties are telling them. As for Plan B, it doesn’t exist or if it does the SNP isn’t letting on what it might be. Alex Salmond has hinted at using the UK Pound without any formal agreement with the UK, (so called “Panamisation” because Panama uses the $US) which seems even more unrealistic and unworkable than abandoning the UK Pound and then rejoining on worse terms. Others in the Yes campaign want a separate Scottish currency. This would have its own drawbacks including set up costs and time to implement and whether the markets would look kindly on a new currency with an unproven record of governance and fewer reserves and with some adverse knock-on effects on the economy. In effect, none of the SNP’s currency options works and the Nationalists therefore have no coherent plan for which currency their brave new country would use, beyond crossing their fingers and hoping it’ll be all right on the night.

That’s my view on the SNP’s currency plans. If I am wrong I’m sure Mr Gibson will let me know. If he really wants a debate on the referendum issues, and I hope that he does, we can then move on to other relevant topics such as jobs, the economy, EU membership and so on. Alex Gallagher Councillor North Coast and Cumbrae