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Bloomberg
After championing the cause for staying in the European Union, Scotland’s nationalists are reigniting their effort to leave the UK with plans for a new currency, economic regime and an open door for immigrants.
A report by a Scottish National Party commission made the case that Scotland should look to emulate small, better-performing economies such as Denmark and New Zealand. Like those nations, Scotland should eventually create its own currency, according to the 354-page report.
The revised vision for what would be Europe’s newest sovereign state is part of the SNP’s plan to build support for another vote on ending the three-centuries-old union with England and Wales. The question is whether the focus on the economy will help move the needle enough to put real pressure on UK Prime Minister Theresa May amid the turmoil of Brexit.
Another independence vote isn’t scheduled, opinion polls show the public isn’t clamoring for one and May has dismissed the idea. But SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, who heads the semi-autonomous government in Edinburgh, regards Brexit as a game-changing event that has the potential to shift voters
her way.
“Sturgeon has discovered in the last two years that, on its own at least, Brexit has so far not changed many minds in Scotland about the merits of independence,†John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, wrote this week. “However, a reinvigorated debate about the economics of independence would seem to have the potential to do so.â€
That includes the currency that would be used in an independent Scotland. The case to retain the British pound was a key battleground in the campaign for the independence referendum in 2014 that the nationalists lost. The report recommends keeping the pound for a “possibly extended transition period†without a formal monetary union with the rest of the UK before switching to a new currency, as yet unnamed. The Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh this month withheld consent for May’s main Brexit legislation.