1. I see @afneil is asking supporters of an iScotland what currency they’d use and is yet to get an economically sensible reply so let’s look at the options.

2. The SNP would most like to keep the £ and still have some say or influence over monetary policy and the ability to print money. For obvious reasons this is not going to happen.

3. The next choice is to just use £ (or $ or any other currency they choose but given the current usage of £ that makes the most sense).
However this means that iScotland would have no say over monetary policy or interest rates or be able to print money or do QE.

4. If they’d got Indy in 2016 and used this policy then they’d have been unable to respond to the Covid crisis in the way the U.K. govt could in financial terms.

5. An iScot would have a large budget deficit plus start up costs so to fund this they’d have to borrow to pay for this. Lenders generally want to feel assurance they’ll get their money back and the less assured the higher the interest rates they’ll demand.

6. For a junk rated country spending way more than it raises these rates would be high and would have a knock on effect on rates charged for Scottish business and personal (mortgage etc) lenders.
The economically productive, already looking at higher taxes would leave.

7. The other possibility is a Scottish pound. Then Scotland could control its monetary policy and be able to print money. However for the sake of stability and the value of loans and mortgages in Scotland they’d probably try and peg it to the £.

8. Great in principle but given the likely parlous state of the economy, the huge budget deficit etc , every currency trader and hedge fund would think it was Christmas and sell the sh*t out of it.

9. Given the paucity of réserves of foreign currency to defend it (One single fund could find more money than the whole of iScotland reserves) either Scotland would have to abandon the peg or raise interest rates so high as to make shorting the currency too painful.

10. This would destroy any economic activity or lending in Scotland. So the Scottish £ would have to dévalue which would screw anyone in Scotland that had a loan or mortgage denominated in £. It would also make imported goods very expensive. Again another nail in the coffin.

11. There is a way to Scottish Indy and to deal with these issues but this would require time (15 years or so at least) a decent plan, a competent administration, honesty with people about these issues and the likely painful disruption of transition.

12. Remarkably the SNP have totally avoided asking these hard questions, seeking answers, putting up a long term credible plan to address this and many other problems. They don’t actually care about the well being of the folk of Scotland.

13. So by all means look for independence if that’s what you want but you owe it to the economically vunerable in Scotland to make a coherent plan and to be honest about the likely serious problems that will arise in the implementation.