JUDGING by the performance of Douglas Ross at FMQs, it’s scarcely any surprise that many of his Scottish Conservative colleagues in Holyrood and senior members of the Conservative Party want to see the back of him.
They are only prevented from ousting him due to the lack of any plausible successor. Mind you, Douglas Ross wasn’t plausible when Ruth Davidson organised a putsch against Jackson Carlaw, and that didn’t stop them.
Ross opened his questioning with a blast from the past – a rehash of one of Better Together’s scare stories from 2014. According to a story in The Times, Scotland cannae join the EU because ye’ll have to adopt the euro, and therefore, Nicola Sturgeon’s economic plan for a Scottish pound is in tatters. Sadly for the hapless Douglas, his “gotcha” moment quickly turned around and bit him on the bum. Ross mentioned that The Times’s report contained assertions from four different sources that joining the EU means committing to join the euro.
There’s a clear contrast between the schoolyard yah boo sucks to you of Prime Minister’s Questions at Westminster and the more grown-up affair of FMQs at the Scottish Parliament. In Holyrood, we actually get answers; in Westminster, all we get are childish insults and evasion.
However, the First Minister retorted that the sources quoted in The Times are all anonymous, so to help Douglas Ross out, she gave him four named authoritative sources. All of them asserted that while a country joining the EU does indeed need to agree to adopt the euro as its currency eventually, there is no set timetable for adoption and the EU not only has no mechanism for forcing a member country to implement its commitment to joining the euro, it has no interest in forcing a country to adopt the euro if the country isn’t ready.
Most stingingly for Douglas Ross, one of those named sources was the former Conservative prime minister David Cameron.
Like the “Spain will veto Scotland’s membership of the EU” scare story, the “you’ll have to adopt the euro” scare story keeps being resuscitated by British nationalists – no matter how many times it has been comprehensively debunked. Poland, Sweden, Czechia, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary all continue to use their own currencies despite the rule about committing to adopt the euro being in place when all of those countries joined the EU. Hungary, Sweden and Czechia all have no current plans to adopt the euro. Croatia is due to adopt the euro next year, despite joining the EU 10 years ago. Bulgaria has plans to adopt the euro in 2024, although the country joined the EU as long ago as 2007. Romania also joined the EU in 2007, but a report from the European Commission in June this year said that the country still does not meet any of the convergence criteria.
Romania has no official target year for joining the euro area at the moment, but finance minister Adrian Caciu recently said that 2029 could be a “viable target.” If this target is achieved, Romania will have been an EU member for 22 years before adopting the euro as its currency. But Douglas Ross would have us believe that, uniquely, Scotland would be compelled to adopt the euro on day one of its EU membership.
Douglas Ross opened his questioning by asking who was lying – the sources quoted in The Times or Nicola Sturgeon? It’s clear that it was, in fact, Douglas Ross.
Thanks to Tory mismanagement of the economy, the pound is heading for parity with the euro, so adopting the euro is not the big, scary monster the Tories would have us believe it is. In fact, many of us Scots would have no problem using the euro.
This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.
To receive our full newsletter including this analysis straight to your email inbox, click HERE and click the "+" sign-up symbol for the REAL Scottish Politics
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel