YOUR leading article in today's issue (Business group calls for new indy Scottish currency, April 10) is both timely and extremely important. The considerable activity for the next independence referendum will, I fear, be in vain if the question of the currency is not satisfactorily sorted out.
During the 2014 campaign it didn’t matter how supportive one was, or how much one admired Alex Salmond – staying with the pound Sterling still came over as the cringe-making wrong course of action. We can now all see, some four years later, how it would have panned out. From the downright dishonesty and deviousness of the Westminster Government over the intervening period since 2014 in their dealings with the Scottish Government, parliament and people, we can now all realise this would never have had a chance of success. The whole Westminster establishment, in which I would include some of the system of bureaucracy located there, shows up a morass of humanity which is, all too often, completely lacking not only in intelligence but also in moral decency.
The most basic requirement for success in the next referendum vote, whenever that comes, is for a cast-iron, workable, believable plan for an independent Scottish currency to be firmly in place. Allied to that must be the necessary arrangements for a central Scottish bank to manage and control the financial state of the country. Without these plans being in place, I fear that all the hard work and enthusiasm of each and every one of us in the independence movement may well be for nothing.
The next few months will be vital and along with the above, clear and unambiguous information must be made widely available concerning the basic needs of the electorate regarding the continuity of pensions and like payments. Then we can go forward with confidence to that next day, which will then become a Yes day.
George M Mitchell
Dunblane
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