GroatThe Governor of the Bank of England has just sunk plans for Scottish independence today, we’re told. The flaws with the SNP’s currency union mean it’s over all bar the voting, apparently.

Except that’s a lot of nonsense for one key reason. Scotland’s medium and long-term currency future won’t be up to the SNP. Their schedule, which I was previously more sceptical about, gives us a bit over two years from a Yes vote to independence day, which coincides with dissolution of Holyrood, which means that post-independence decisions will be made by the people in the most interesting election Scotland will have ever seen.

I’m also very relaxed about an initial period where we use the pound prior to any change, either to our own currency, my preferred option, or hypothetically to the Euro, which I doubt any of Scotland’s five Parliamentary parties will offer in May 2016. But imagine Labour win at Westminster in 2015, which still has to be the most likely option. And then perhaps a separate Scottish Labour would get their act together and lead Scotland’s first independence administration. It’s not impossible: just think how the British electorate chose them to “win the peace” in 1945. Would those two administrations not work together while respecting the Scottish people’s desire for independence?

In fact, the hostility to currency union from Westminster and Threadneedle Street would then no longer have much of a real purpose, if one accepts that it’s primarily to scare Scots into voting No. Maybe the SNP would also accept over time that currency union would be too restrictive, and offer a transition to our own currency (see the Republic of Ireland’s experience for how slowly that might happen). Who knows? But the decision will, if we win, be made by the Scottish people on the basis of the manifestos offered then: each option has pros and cons, but a democratic choice is the right way for it to be made.