Ahead of next week’s SNP conference, Scottish Monetary Reform's Ronnie Morrison reveals a motion which didn’t make it through, and says it's vital for the independence movement to ensure there are open spaces – like IdeaSpace – for discussion on finance and the economy
Conference condemns the serious misjudgement over the currency issue prior to the last referendum and resolves that an open and transparent debate be initiated wherein all the options for a National Currency and associated banking reform are evaluated and a firm policy proposal voted upon at conference well before the next referendum.
I'M old enough to remember a time when resolutions criticising party policy could actually reach the conference forum. Nowadays, anything controversial is filtered out by the party machine.
Since devolution, the SNP has tried very hard to demonstrate that it can be trusted to be a responsible government and that implies discipline in the ranks and avoiding any controversy which might lead to a split.
It has been a difficult balancing act to retain this image and still genuinely invite participation from the grassroots.
Brexit has introduced many uncertainties but there is one certainty to which the SNP can and must commit if it is to achieve success at any future referendum: a clear and unequivocal policy on currency.
I have never been a member of parliament but it is fairly apparent that a political career is seldom advanced by sticking your head above the parapet. Advancement is more likely to come from accommodating those in power and well-established political lobbyists.
All that said, I do not believe that Scotland will ever achieve independence if the SNP sacrifices its radical roots in exchange for a quiet life.
Brexit has introduced many uncertainties but there is one certainty to which the SNP can and must commit if it is to achieve success at any future referendum, and that is a clear and unequivocal policy on the currency which Scotland would use.
That decision, of course, goes far beyond the coins in your pocket or the paper notes in your wallet because it reaches into the nature of the regulation of banks, public debt and, indeed, the whole gamut of monetary policy.
The Campaign for a Scottish Currency is one of many international organisations with the research and experience to inform an open and transparent public debate about the currency options facing Scotland.
One can have sympathy with parliamentarians and even treasury officials, contemplating this can of worms. The present money system can be likened to an inverted pyramid constantly teetering on the point of collapse.
Policymakers can be forgiven for scuttling away and leaving it all to be sorted out by the bankers and economists and academics. That, however, is not good enough.
These are the very people who recommended to Alex Salmond that an independent Scotland could share Sterling. Very few of them have a radical bone in their bodies and view any prospect of serious change as anathema.
There must, however, be change to our financial system because it is inherently unstable. That is little wonder because it was designed from the outset by an elite for an elite at the expense of the many.
Either we keep bending under this ever increasing burden of national debt and austerity or we turn around and face the shadows. Independence offers the Scots a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to start afresh free of debt and deception.
So far, the SNP has responded with a deafening silence and that is why this campaign is now directing all its energies towards the grassroots activists who are the real power behind the SNP.
The Campaign for a Scottish Currency is one of many international organisations with the research and experience to inform an open and transparent public debate about the currency options facing Scotland.
So far, the SNP has responded with a deafening silence and that is why this campaign is now directing all its energies towards the grassroots activists who are the real power behind the SNP.
Collectively we can make this happen, so find out more about what we can do together from our stand or at our presentation on Thursday 13 October at the IdeasSpace Fringe Event.
Scottish Monetary Reform, alongside Positive Money, will hold its fringe meeting on this topic at IdeaSpace on Thursday 13 October in the lecture theatre of the Glasgow Science Centre. Find out more details here.
Picture courtesy of the SNP
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