No union, no pound, British official warns Scots backing independence

http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-no-britain-scotland-pound-independence-20140213,0,6871810.story



Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne gives a speech Thursday in Edinburgh, Scotland, linked to the forthcoming referendum on Scottish independence.

No union, no pound, British official warns Scots backing independence
By Henry Chu
February 13, 2014, 8:23 a.m.

LONDON – Escalating the fight against secession, the British government warned Thursday that Scotland would lose the right to continue using the pound as its currency if voters there say yes to a historic referendum on independence this fall.

“The pound isn’t an asset to be divided up between two countries after a breakup as if it were a CD collection,” Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said. “The people of the rest of the U.K. [United Kingdom] wouldn’t accept it, and Parliament wouldn’t pass it. ... If Scotland walks away from the U.K., it walks away from the pound.”

Osborne’s stark warning, delivered in a speech in Edinburgh, the Scottish capital, represented a new willingness by unionists to take a hard line in persuading Scottish voters to shun independence in a September plebiscite. A thumbs-up would end Scotland’s 307-year-old marriage to England and Wales and cause the biggest political shakeup in the British Isles since Ireland split from the British crown nearly a century ago.

Scottish nationalists have insisted that their country, if independent, would retain the pound and other symbols of British identity, such as the monarchy. But Osborne, Britain’s top Treasury official, who had previously hinted at the difficulties of sharing a currency, said he now ruled out such an option.