Scotland: will it be the new Greece?

The real problem with Scottish independence is that it would mean losing fiscal union, but keeping monetary union. And we know that doesn't work.

A word on Scotland. People keep asking me what I think about the possibility of Scottish independence. The chaos in the eurozone puts it nicely into perspective.

If Scotland votes to go it alone, they will end up with either the euro or the pound as their currency. The latter is more likely than the former, given that there is no legal reason to think that any arrangements Westminster has made with Brussels would extend to Holyrood.

So while Scotland's government would get to tax and spend at will (for a while at least), interest rates and the like would probably end being set for Scotland by the Bank of England rather than the ECB.

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But either way, Scotland would end up with something everyone in Europe is really wishing they didn't already have: monetary union without fiscal union.

In the context of this month so far, that makes Mr Salmond's plans to go it alone look totally ludicrous.

Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.