A post in the Edinburgh Eye suggested that independence is only real when a country has complete control of its currency. Greece is an obvious example of what is meant. The author goes on to say that the SNP stance at the referendum of insisting on sharing the UK pound was not campaigning for independence. This I agree with. In fact I said it on my blog, The SNP presumes too much…, back in the middle of 2014. I also made the point that the SNP would not have an inherent right to form a government after independence nor to dictate the terms. The YES voters who campaigned outwith the auspices of the SNP were much more visionary, looking to create a better society truly throwing off the shackles of Westminster.
It is therefore with some dismay that I read further in the Edinburgh Eye post to discover that he had voted NO. If many people voted that way because the SNP were too timid in their campaign it is a tragedy. To want independence and yet to vote against it because of one political party’s stance is frankly awful. What was he thinking to achieve?
Let’s hope that next time people accept the vision of a great nation able to look after its people.
Questions and Reflections 
“. To want independence and yet to vote against it because of one political party’s stance is frankly awful. What was he thinking to achieve?”
I was “thinking to achieve” a No majority, since the SNP were campaigning for currency union and there was no real opposition to that from the Yes movement.
(By “real opposition” I don’t even mean a ground plan from the Yes movement about how they intended to defeat the Scottish and UK government on setting up a currency union prior to the day set for independence – which was in March 2016. I mean that the majority of voices from the Yes movement were either in support of currency union or handwaving it off as unimportant: the Scottish Green party, who in principle opposed currency union, were keeping very quiet indeed about their opposition.)
Before I decided to vote No, I was undecided: I was in principle open to being convinced of the benefits of independence or continued devolution.
Unfortunately the Yes movement, as I noted above, was mostly not interested in convincing me about the benefits of independence: they were supporting the SNP’s campaign for currency union. I was against currency union, so I voted No.
I guess your stance was one of a number of reasons why people voted NO. I thought the currency union was a toxic idea but felt that Salmond was campaigning for it so as not to scare too many people off the idea of independence. This was with hindsight a bad mistake on his part.
I voted YES and presumed that an independent Scotland would consider all its options in matters political and economic as the SNP would not be the only party with a voice after a YES vote. I had suggested in an earlier post that I trusted the other political parties were at least planning to hit the ground running in the event of a YES vote. The SNP, as now, is not actually a “government” but a devolved administration and as such could not presume to become the government if the people voted for Independence.
However what I did not want was to continue to be dragged to the right in a neo-liberal direction by voters south of the Border. That seemed to me to be worse than any botched deal by an independent Scotland.