SNP ministers are acting like “domesticated cats” at Holyrood and do not “realise what it really takes” to become an independent country, according to an expert in macroeconomics.
Thibault Laurentjoye, an associate professor at Aalborg University in Denmark, further told The National Podcast that the SNP Government’s policy for currency in an independent Scotland was not credible – and that the Yes side has been “literally unprepared” for the debate in 2014.
During the first Scottish independence referendum, Alex Salmond’s SNP proposed a “currency union” with the rest of the UK – meaning that Scotland would continue to use the pound.
However, then-chancellor George Osborne definitively ruled it out, saying: “There will be no currency union if Scotland becomes independent, no ifs, no buts. An independent Scotland would not share the pound with the rest of the UK."
In 2022, the SNP Government published a white paper which laid out plans to use the pound immediately after independence, but transition to a new Scottish currency in time. “The change would take place as soon as practicable through a careful, managed and responsible transition, guided by criteria and economic conditions rather than a fixed timetable,” the paper said.
Asked if that position was credible, Laurentjoye – who is currently working on a paper on currency in an independent Scotland for the Scottish Currency Group (SCG) – said: “No. To me it sounds like trying to turn a domesticated cat into a wild cat overnight. It doesn't happen like this.”
He went on: “When I hear the SNP establishment – and you know I'm a complete foreign, external observer – I feel like they are domesticated cats …
“At the end of the day, it's a very nice situation they're in. There’s devolution, they enjoy a little bit of power but not too much – and I don't think they realise what it really takes.
“It's like, people live in their parents' home, and then one day they leave their parents’ home and things can go very badly or very well, and it's a matter of taking responsibility into your hands.”
Laurentjoye further said that in 2014 the debate around what currency an independent Scotland should use had been “appalling”.
“They clearly hadn't thought about it very seriously,” he said of the SNP. “Alex Salmond, albeit with a background in economics, tried to kick the ball to the side saying, ‘Oh, we'll have a currency union with the rest of the UK’.
“A matter of days later, the UK Government said, ‘No, there will be no such thing’, which means that on one of the most serious aspects, they came literally unprepared.”
Laurentjoye, who will join the New Economics Foundation as a senior economist later this year, said that he had met people within the group who had voted No in 2014 because they believed that “was amateurish and there was no plan”.
“Currency is extremely important,” he added. “You cannot, for what Scotland needs and considering Scotland's potential, if you don't have your own currency, you’re just wasting it.”
You can watch the full podcast with Thibault Laurentjoye on YouTube, or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
