Alex Salmond attacks ‘campaign rhetoric’ with a ‘George Tax’

After a couple of weeks of something frightening and bad called ‘campaign rhetoric’ from Westminster politicians, Alex Salmond today tried to reassure Scots that everything would be OK if they did vote for independence. ‘The rest of the UK will never be foreign’ to an independent Scotland, he insisted, sounding rather in favour of another aspect of the Union (alongside the Queen, the pound and so on). And this ‘campaign rhetoric’ about the currency union was wrong – and dangerous to the rest of the UK, said Salmond. Employing something that was of course nothing like campaign rhetoric at all, the First Minister warned that ruling out a currency union between an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK would damage British businesses through transaction costs:

‘Now my submission is that this charge – let’s call it something, let’s call it the George Tax – my submission is that this would be impossible to sell the English business, to be charged by their own Chancellor for the privilege of exporting goods to Scotland.’