Holyrood’s finance secretary has called for detailed currency talks with the Treasury, as the row intensifies over the future of the pound in an independent Scotland.
John Swinney said the country would not be “shoved about” by the chancellor, following his intervention on the future of Scotland’s money.
Meanwhile, the SNP’s political opponents insisted a currency union between an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK would not work and called on First Minister Alex Salmond to set out a back-up plan.
George Osborne declared last week that he would not be prepared to enter a currency union with an independent Scotland. Labour and the Liberal Democrats have indicated they are also opposed to such a union.
The arrangement is the Scottish Government’s preferred plan should Scots vote for independence in September.
The SNP has dismissed Mr Osborne’s speech as “bluff, bluster and bullying”. Mr Salmond intends to “deconstruct” the chancellor’s position on the issue when he addresses business leaders in Aberdeen today, arguing Mr Osborne’s stance is “ill-thought-out and misinformed”.
Mr Swinney yesterday accused the chancellor of bluffing, saying he had not addressed “the negative implications for the rest of the UK of his refusal to go down the route of a currency union”. Mr Swinney said that the Scottish Government’s preference for a currency union was in light of expert opinion taken from a range of international economists.
He added: “For the chancellor to say on the one hand that he will not pre-negotiate and then come to Scotland and essentially pre-negotiate by dictat, is what’s caused the very strong reaction in Scotland that the people of this country will not be shoved about by a UK chancellor. We want have a sensible discussion about all these issues.”
But former chancellor Alistair Darling, leader of the pro-Union Better Together campaign, said: “At the moment we have a single currency, the pound, and it works because we’ve got a political union, we’ve got an economic union, we can transfer money around from richer to poorer parts and so on.
“We’re being asked to give up that pound and it’s now clear a currency union is off the table.
“What we now need to know is what’s the replacement for the pound – something that Alex Salmond either can’t or won’t tell us.”
Mr Salmond intends to attack Mr Osborne when he speaks to the pro-independence Business for Scotland organisation.
He said: “I will be deconstructing the chancellor’s ill-thought-out and misinformed intervention point by point, making clear why a currency union not only favours Scotland but is in the clear economic interests of the UK as well.”
He has also written to Prime Minister David Cameron alleging “bullying” behaviour by Westminster ministers.
And referring to a Scottish “backlash” against the chancellor’s comments he added: “On the evidence so far, Project Fear’s latest currency gambit has backfired spectacularly.”
Evidence of a backlash was fuelled last night with the announcement that a former Labour member with close links to Mr Darling now supports the Yes campaign. Ian Newton, who was Mr Darling’s first election agent when he stood for Lothian council in the 1980s, made the decision in protest at the tactics of the chancellor and main UK political parties.
Meanwhile, on the eve of Mr Salmond’s speech in Aberdeen, city council leader Barney Crockett suggested there would be concern among the north-east business community about the SNP’s stance on currency union.
The Labour councillor said: “We have a booming economy here and I think that the huge majority of businesses in the area would be thoroughly alarmed at the posturing of Alex Salmond. His threats to renege on Scotland’s share of UK debt could lead to all out economic war between Scotland and the rest of the UK – that would be disastrous for business in Scotland and even more so for businesses locally here in the north-east.”