Here’s how transfer to a Scottish currency would work after independence

On each banknote are the words “promise to pay”, although the notes themselves have no intrinsic value.

After independence is declared (soon, I hope!), the Great British pound in our pockets will work in just the normal way, I promise.

However, the Scottish Government would have no control over it, or its continued decline, and so goods from around the world will continue to increase in price, just as they are doing at the moment.

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However, that currency will act for us, temporarily, as an easily measured bartering system, in exactly the same way as it does today.

When our own currency is defined and named, the change over will be slick and easy, as I’m sure it will be a decimal currency, and the changeover will be quite unlike the Bank of England’s protracted changes from LSD.

The defunct currency will be phased out quickly, while our banks will continue to hold the GBP as foreign currency reserves, adjusting that holding as we move on.

England and its Bank have no option but to honour its currency, no matter what the Tories might say.

There! I hope that helps to eliminate this matter as a cause for concern.

Take this on board too: the new Scottish currency will be a “petro-currency”, and there is no such thing as a weak “petro-currency” (the GBP excepted). All Scots will benefit from that.

As an afterthought, we could name our new currency after a Scottish town or city. We could call it an “Auchterader”, say, or a “Dollar”. What fun, eh?

Christopher Bruce
Taynuilt

DOESN’T Labour declaring it can make Brexit “work” seem like little more than the Spanish government saying it can complete the building of the Sagrada Familia – something that might happen in an undetermined future time?

Well, that wouldn’t impress the Catalans and trying to make Brexit work for us, after six years of abject failure despite being lied to at the outset that it would be a panacea for the UK’s ills, is no more than a fallacious and improbable pipedream.

Haven’t the UK’s ills been brought about by Tory government policies of austerity that restricted the very growth that we are now told we need, but unsurprising that the cycle of austerity will need to be reinstated to fund it? Another round of the poor getting poorer, workers needing benefits and food banks and taxes being used to bolster the profits and dividends of the shareholders of Tory-donating “enterprises”.

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For we in the herd, the limit of our fortune will be to squat on the pavement awaiting the trickle down of “water” from the penthouse flats owned by oligarchs with a mission to ensure the taps are firmly turned off.

Britain’s economy is stuck in the past. Perhaps inspired by Tory government practice, Marty McFly’s next adventure should be titled Forward to the Past.

We’re ignoring history and are destined to relive it in Tory Truss and Kwarteng’s Groundhog Day economics.

Perhaps if the Labour policy-setters (used to be the membership) had the wit to appeal to ordinary folk rather than seeking to appeal to the Tories’ bedfellows then it might have a case.

Sadly, I just worry about how much more economic damage Labour will allow to be inflicted before common sense prevails.

Clearly in the two-horse race to EU common sense the thoroughbred, Indy, is lengths ahead of the UK ass. Hopefully we’ll be standing in the winner’s enclosure to welcome the clapped-out rUK ass back.

Voting Indy is an exercise in Brexit damage limitation. The longer we wait...

Jim Taylor
Edinburgh

I SEE some German and other MPs would welcome us in the EU (Many in EU have pledged to ‘keep the door open’, Oct 9), however it would be highly dangerous for Scots generally as the free movement of capital would be against workers as companies could outsource businesses to cheap labour in eastern Europe, likewise the free movement of capital enables them to do so. The EU from its beginnings was intended as an anti-trade-union organisation.

Also, if we want to nationalise industry we can’t, because of the EU rules enforcing market competition, so we can’t change from capitalism to socialism peacefully.

Then there is the undemocratic nature of the European Commission with its authoritarian directives. How much say would Scotland have?

The euro would also be unlikely to benefit Scotland as it mainly benefits the major north European countries whilst the south European countries have been badly affected in trading by not being able to adjust their exchange rates.

Given the economic and political problems which would affect Scotland, it may be better if we were to join EFTA, which would benefit us in trading.

Colin Beattie
via email