I think I'm against a Devo-Max entry on the referendum

[andrewducker]

Two reasons:
1) It wouldn't confuse me, but I've seen plenty of evidence that even the simplest question is going to confuse _some_ people, and I'd rather keep something as important as an independence referendum as simple as possible.

2) I don't think it's necessary. The negotiation of powers inside a United Kingdom is an ongoing process. We have, for instance, The Scotland Bill, which is making its way through parliament at the moment. There will always be back and forth and renegotiation, and I'd expect any government (both Scottish and UK) to push things in the direction that they feel is best. If Scots want more powers then they can vote for a party that will push harder that way*. If they want to align more closely with Westminster then they can vote for a party that will streamline things in that direction. It's not a Big Bang change, and thus doesn't need a referendum.

Between the two of them I think I'm pretty-much convinced. Any arguments on the other side?


*I mean, does anyone think that the SNP could be in power and _not_ constantly push for more powers for Scotland?

Comments

[andrewducker]

Seemed a bit incoherent to me.

"It works without a treaty for Montenegro and for Hong Kong, and the Euro is falling apart, therefore Scotland shouldn't have the pound unless it can sign a treaty."

Or did I read it wrong?

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

It’s not the fact that they don’t work for the countries he cites. It’s the implications of the what is given up to make it work.

I think what he’s saying is this

Montenegro uses the Euro informally so in order to have any currency at all – even physically – it has to maintain balance of payments with the Eurozone and therefore has to sell stuff to Germany which requires the government of Montenegro to have a fairly constrained fiscal policy and for workers and businesses in Montenegro to remain competitive by price matching Greece.

Hong Kong uses the de facto international reserve currency. Dollars are acceptable everywhere so they never have to worry that their actual paper money won’t work somewhere else in the world. What he’s implying but not stating outright is that with a formal currency but one-sided currency peg is that the Hong Kong central bank is probably paying some money out in order to maintain the currency peg. As long as the Bank of HK is prepared to maintain the currency peg I can keep HL$ or US$ in my bank as I chose as they are effectively the same thing. The bank of HK can only maintain the currency peg because Hong Kong has such a healthy economy in particular I suspect a current account surplus.

Formal currency unions, such as the eurozone, appear to only work if there is some strong fiscal link and some treaty to back this up.

Therefore, if Scotland decides to keep the pound they can either be Montenegro and have to balance their current account with the rest of the Sterling zone every day, Hong Kong so long as they can pay for the currency peg or they can have the formality that the eurozone doesn’t have but probably should have done.

Given that being Hong Kong is probably not an option for Scotland at the moment, both the available options for retaining sterling reduce the Scottish government’s economic policy options to such an extent that one might wonder what the point of being independent was.