The SNP doesn’t have a serious plan for independence

The next UK general election will be a referendum on independence for Scotland. This is according to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, after the ‘disappointing’ Supreme Court ruling last week found that her administration did not in fact have the power to unilaterally rewrite the UK’s constitution.

Will the people of Scotland really accept that the ballot box outcome in 2024 will represent a ‘de facto’ referendum that could lead to them being removed from the UK? With no legal or historic precedent for such an undertaking, the arbitrariness of the proposition would be comical if it were not so serious.

But perhaps equally comical is the idea that Sturgeon’s team is developing a serious plan for implementing economic independence. Principally, how it will manage a sudden move outside the sterling currency zone without creating an economic crisis for the new state. The plan is to unofficially use sterling in a similar way to how Panama uses the dollar, or Montenegro the euro, but then move to a new Scottish currency.