A LEADING figure in the SNP has backed an independent Scotland establishing its own currency and Central Bank.

Constitutional affairs spokesman and Westminster frontbencher Tommy Sheppard yesterday told the 800-strong audience at the Scottish Independence Convention a key advantage of the policy was that it did not rely on consent from the UK Government.

Yes strategists believe the position advocated by the pro-independence side in the last campaign, of continuing to use sterling in an independent Scotland through a currency union with the rest of the UK, was a chief weakness.

The position was fundamentally undermined by the then Chancellor George Osborne when he said the UK Government would refuse to allow an independent Scotland to use the pound.

Since the 2014 defeat, support has been growing for the option of a new Scottish state establishing its own currency.

To loud and prolonged applause, Sheppard told the convention meeting in Glasgow: “The time has come to say that if we want our own government which is capable of investing in our economy and making sure we develop and modernise our industry, then that government will need to have a Central Bank behind it, under its own control, and we are going to have to have our own currency.

“One of the lessons we learnt from 2014 is that it is very difficult to go into a campaign when one of your central policy points relies on consent from your opponents, and therefore the next time it will be clear that what we will say we can offer we can do in Scotland using the political power we seek from the electorate.”

He added: “I know it has to be tested, I’m not suggesting we start printing the leaflets just yet. But we should spend this year looking at the options, testing the possibilities, looking at the downsides and the upsides of policy options, but I think at the end of it we will come out with a belief we can run our own economy with our own currency and that will make us stronger.”

Sheppard played a prominent role in the Yes campaign ahead of the September 2014 vote and was elected SNP MP for Edinburgh East in 2015.

He went on to say that 2017 should be a year when the new Yes movement worked out a wider and new case in changed political circumstances following the Brexit vote.

Scotland voted in the EU referendum in June last year in favour of remaining in the EU, while the vote overall in the UK was to leave.

The UK Government is now embarking on the process of taking Scotland out of the bloc, along with the rest of the UK despite the vote north of the Border.

Last month First Minister Nicola Sturgeon published proposals to keep the whole of the UK in the single market or to pursue a differentiated option allowing Scotland to remain in it, with the options entailing dropping EU membership.

But she has also said a new referendum is “on the table” and is “highly likely” if Prime Minister Theresa May pursues a hard Brexit. She has said the vote will not take place this year.

“This is the year we put the band back together and we get people discussing what type of Scotland they want to see if we are independent,” said Sheppard.

“We engage them in these discussions, particularly the people who voted No last time, particularly those who said ‘My heart says Yes, but my mind says No.’ We bring the i-curious, as I call them, into the fold and discuss the policy options with them. I believe that will put us in a much stronger footing when the starting pistol has been fired and we begin to win the campaign for votes.”

A separate Scottish pound is already backed by the pro-independence Scottish Greens, which adopted the stance in 2014, and it is the subject of discussion in the SNP’s Growth Commission, set up by Sturgeon last year.

An initial report has been submitted to party chiefs but has not been made public.

Weeks after the Brexit vote, the international investment bank JP Morgan said it expected Scotland to vote for independence and introduce its own currency before the UK leaves the European Union. The financial institution gave the assessment after the Brexit vote caused financial turmoil in the London stock exchange and saw the value of the pound plummet.

“Our base case is that Scotland will vote for independence and institute a new currency at that point,” the bank’s economist Malcolm Barr said in a note to clients after it produced a paper analysing the consequences of the vote to leave the EU.

The paper warned there are “myriad uncertainties in how the UK’s relationship with the EU will evolve” but says the bank’s analysis provides a “case for how we think things will play out from here.”

In a section on Scotland, it said: “Intersecting the UK’s EU exit process is likely to be pressure to hold a new referendum on Scottish independence, which we expect will ultimately produce a vote shortly before the UK leaves the EU in 2019.

“Our base case is that Scotland will vote for independence and institute a new currency at that point.”

In 2013 the National Institute for Economic and Social Research worked with the Economic and Social Research Council to assess choices on currency, concluding that a separate currency would be the “prudent option” for an independent Scotland.