Just to be clear on the issue of a 'currency board' which is either being misrepresented in error or deliberately ....
A currency board is used by countries who have their own currency but wish it to move in line with another currency. The Hong Kong Dollar is pegged to the US Dollar in this way for instance. The Danish Krone is pegged to the Euro via ERM II. Both require currency boards to manage and maintain the peg.
Note that both of these places have their own currency. Scotland does not. The banknotes that we see in Scotland are not 'Scottish Pounds' pegged to Sterling. They ARE sterling with different pictures on them. A record is kept at the BoE of how many are in circulation so they can be accurately included in the money supply. This is often misrepresented as the BoE holding sterling on reserve against the Scottish currency but that is absolutely false.
Just to repeat, Scottish banknotes are poud Sterling with different pictures on them. They are NOT Sottish pounds pegged to Sterling.
Had Scotland achieved independence they would have had to use Pounds unofficially through a process of Sterlingisation which would have meant that these note would exit circulation. Scotland could not mint its own pounds anymore than Spain could. It would be forgery. They would be reliant on the pound sterling minted by the BoE and already in circulation.
If they want to have a currency board they need to launch their own currency (Scottish Pounds, Grotes or whatever), build up reserves, set their own interest rates and THEN create a peg against sterling against whatever rate they see fit and task the board with maintaining it. At no point whatsoever has this been suggested. The plans as they stand at the moment leaves Scotland without its own currency.
If the nationalists had have been clear on this point, the whole circular debate that has clearly taken place last night could have been avoided .. The point with the Euro is it's a continental currency with many voices and a central bank acting on their behalf - it was designed that way (although not as well as it could and should have been). In the case of the rUK and iScotland it'll be one country of 55m using the currency formally and its central bank controlling it, and another of 6m using it entirely informally with absolutely no say. Yes, Scotland will be independent, but it'll be in a heavily lopsided bi-lateral relationship with no control over the direction that relationship takes. That's why the comparison with a pan-continental currency like the Euro is nonsense. But if that's what voting YES is about, fill your boots.
