Finance Secretary John Swinney claims the UK Government has been exposed for “scaremongering” over threats to stop an independent Scotland using the pound.
He said an admission from an unnamed coalition minister that a currency union would be forged after a “yes” vote had “demolished” the position advocated by Chancellor George Osborne.
Mr Swinney claimed the UK Government was guilty of “foghorn diplomacy” on the issue.
The SNP minister made the remarks at Holyrood yesterday despite the fact that Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg insisted on Monday that it was “flatly wrong” to suggest a currency union would happen. The Liberal Democrat MP said an independent Scotland could not “have their cake and eat it” if voters decided to back independence on September 18.
But Mr Swinney said: “The opinion polls have clearly indicated that people in Scotland do not believe the bluff we’ve heard from the UK Government ministers and their allies in the Labour Party.
“I think that helps people in Scotland to make it absolutely clear that the UK ministers that have tried to essentially scaremonger on this question have been found to have been seriously wanting in the way in which they have set out their arguments to the people of Scotland.”
Labour MSP Drew Smith asked the finance secretary why the SNP would want a currency union in the first place.
The opposition member said: “Why does one unnamed source in London give him such confidence when there are so many named sources in the ‘yes’ campaign arguing just as strongly against a eurozone-style union as anyone in the UK Government?”
Mr Swinney said nobody on the independence side of the argument who speaks on behalf of the SNP government had made such a proposal.
“We put forward a currency union that is in the interests of Scotland as an independent country and the rest of the United Kingdom,” he added.