Two devastating salvos in Scotland’s war of independence

The chancellor and the EU Commission president had some unwelcome news for Alex Salmond.

Chancellor George Osborne and the EU Commission president, Jos Manuel Barroso, have "launched separate salvos" in the past week, warning Scottish voters they could not keep their currency or their EU membership if they vote to leave the UK in September's referendum, says Kiran Stacey in the Financial Times.

Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish nationalists, insists they are bluffing. He says that the transaction costs of a new currency would be too high for businesses on both sides of the border and threatened to refuse Scotland's share of the national debt if it could not share the pound.

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