After a Yes vote on Scottish independence, there will be a currency union and Scotland will keep the pound.
I hope there isn't a Yes vote, but if there is that's what I think will happen. I think so because if Scotland votes Yes, the rest of us will want the Scots to take their fair share of the national debt, and we will also want some of the oil revenues. Realism suggests that a deal will be struck.
But as Mark Carney suggested yesterday, currency union implies a degree of fiscal union, rather like the one we currently have, with a central bank acting both as regulator and lender of last resort. As Carney implied, this will imply some loss of sovereignty for Scotland, which will have to put up with the indignity of controls on public spending, debt issuance and perhaps even tax levels. And Alex Salmond knows this, even if many of his supporters don't.
That being the case, why does Salmond want independence at all?
And (I guess) why do those of us opposed to it mind so much?
