Scotland and the Pound

I have been thinking about Québec separatism for a long time now—the PQ won its first election a few months after I arrived here. I abhor the very idea of separation except in conditions where the separating entity is actively being oppressed. On the other hand if a jurisdiction votes to separate, it should be allowed to do so without undue fuss. (The Québec situation is the paradigm case of undue fuss, though, prolonged as it has been for forty or more years, with the attendant destabilization of the Canadian polity and economy. Vote yes and then goodbye, or vote no and hold your peace forever.)

This said, I am puzzled by the stand of all three national UK parties regarding the pound. Their position, and that of the Governor of the Bank of England, is that an independent Scotland cannot have the pound. I don't understand.

Presumably, Scotland is a part of the UK, and the pound is the UK currency. George Osborne, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, said in an Edinburgh speech: "If Scotland walks away from the UK, it walks away from the UK pound," and "“There is no legal reason why the rest of the UK would need to share its currency with Scotland.” Osborn's second statement shows what is wrong with his first: the pound does not belong to "the rest of the UK"—it belongs to the UK. And the UK would, as such, cease to exist if Scotland were to walk away from it.

“The pound isn’t an asset to be divided up between two countries after a break up as if it were a CD collection,” said Osborne. But isn't that exactly what it is?

Oh . . . and the same goes for the Canadian dollar, I think.