Salmond comes out fighting in currency row
Scotland’s first minister says unnamed minister’s admission that Scotland could keep the pound is a “demolition” of the No campaign’s position.
Alex Salmond spoke out after an unnamed minister was quoted in Saturday’s Guardian yesterday as saying there would be an agreement on the pound in the event of a vote in favour of Scottish independence in this year’s referendum.
All three main parties at Westminster have officially ruled out a sterling currency union with an independent Scotland.
But the minister told the newspaper: “There would be a highly complex set of negotiations after a Yes vote with many moving pieces.
“The UK wants to keep Trident nuclear weapons at Faslane and the Scottish Government wants a currency union – you can see the outlines of a deal.”
The comments prompted Alistair Darling, who heads the Better Together group, and shadow chancellor Ed Balls to stress a shared pound “wouldn’t happen, no matter what anonymous quotes people read”.
Mr Salmond told Sky News: “You would not have had the panicky reaction of the last 48 hours…if the No campaign didn’t realise that their scaremongering has been holed below the water line.
It has been a very difficult 48 hours for the No campaign and it’s going to get a lot worse. Alex Salmond
“It has been a very difficult 48 hours for the No campaign and it’s going to get a lot worse because they are not basing their arguments on a positive vision of the future.
“They have based their arguments on whatever they can say or do in this campaign to try and intimidate the people of Scotland out of voting for independence and their bluff is being called.
“George Osborne and Ed Balls joining hands and reiterating the scaremongering doesn’t deny the story. It seems to me that the story is a very important demolition of the No campaign.”
Mr Salmond denied that the future of nuclear weapons at the Faslane base on the Clyde would be a bargaining chip in post-independence talks, saying: “Of course there will be negotiations around the currency zone but they won’t concern nuclear weapons, they will be about debt levels.
“The negotiations will take place about share of debt, not about things like Trident, which we are unambiguously opposed to.”
The comments came as Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael, a key player in the pro-union campaign, said it needed to do more and match the nationalists’ “hunger” for victory.
The Liberal Democrat MP told the Observer: “I am not expecting to lose, but it is eminently possible that they will be able to buy momentum with the advertising and campaign resource they have.
“We’re never going to match them for the spend, but in terms of the hunger I think we have to match them for just how badly we want this.
“That is always going to be a challenge, because for nationalists this is the issue that defines them, whereas for a Labour supporter, a Liberal or a Conservative, this can be an issue you care about but is not one that defines you.
“So that is where we need to work harder at motivating our people in a way that their people come ready motivated.”