Let be be honest here, if the Scottish people think that they can join the EU without joining the EURO, they're delusional. Another parasitic state within the EU would be too much. Too much exceptions would only harm the Union.

The Scottish people are delusional if they think that Brussels would ever allow another state to opt-out. It would undermine the trust in the EURO even further.

I'm not saying that the Scottish people aren't allowed to have their own currency or whatever. Because once they're independent they can decide whatever they like, just as long as they're staying out of the European Union.

If they want to join, they're welcome, but don't expect to reap the benefits without giving up some things. It's a Union after all.

Osborne has missed the point that whatever will be the case for scotland as a successor state within the EU will also apply to what is left of what used to be the UK. SO any concessions made by the EU to the UK regarding joining the euro will no longer apply.

This is dreadful churnalism. Even twenty minutes research on the Euro would have helped here. Nobody can be forced to join the Euro since joining the ERM - a necessary precondition to the Euro - is optional. That - and a referendum which voted no - why Sweden still hasn't joined after 16 years.

The SNP haven't heard of " Fiscal Union ".

Alex Salmond has had so many warm words for the euro.

RabtheCairnTerrier: It's not an absurd scenario because Scotland would be a member of a currency union with the UK. The Eurozone requires all members to use identical banknotes.

Under the current arrangement Scottish notes are not legal tender but the Bank of England allows some retail banks to issue their own notes. Under independence Scotland could continue to use the pound similiar to the arrangement in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man as long as the notes are possession of the Crown (Scotland would remain in the Commonwealth under the Union of the Crowns unless there was a referendum on becoming a Republic) and subject to Bank of England control, i.e a Monetary Union even though these territories adminster their own governance over tax and spending. Some British Overseas territories even have their own currency seperate from the pound and not accepted in the UK. The SNP have always said they'll keep the pound until the time is right to hold a referendum on going into the Euro. But the whole thing is hypothetical until negotiations are agreed anyway.

The issue of where Trident will be located if Scotland goes independent is a potentiall far more explosive issue if you'll pardon the pun.

I expect the MOD civil servants have been looking at possible alternative sites to Faslane and Coulport but this could be a costly exercise tied up with years of legal actions through local opposition and logistical management to avoid unilateral nuclear disarmament and the loss of a seat at the UN's top table.

So if anyone in England, Wales or Northern Ireland knows of large stretches of remote deep inland water with access to the Atlantic, I suggest you send your suggestions to the MOD and US military pronto!

Surely if Scotland becomes an independent country it will have to apply to join the EU?
If this is the case then it will not have a choice as all new countries joining must take the euro as their currency.

The more Clegg and Osbourne try to insult and threaten Salmond - the more I warm to him. His way of "telling it" is much more persuasive than anything coming out of the Labour party.

Salmond told Channel 4 News that he would, in any post-independence vote negotiation, be looking to take some 90 per cent of North Sea oil revenues but only eight per cent of the national debt.
Challenged as to whether this would be fair, given the outstanding debts of the Royal Bank of Scotland - a bank based in Scotland for which he used to work - Mr Salmond said: "Obviously the people responsible for that, just as the people who took the corporation tax over the Royal Bank of Scotland, were the London Treasury, and unfortunately they were also responsible for misregulating the financial sector as well. I'm afraid people have to take responsibility for the past mistakes they made."
Hmm - 'past mistakes', Alex?
Salmond enthusiastically backed the RBS’s disastrous takeover of the Dutch bank ABN-Amro. In May 2007 Salmond wrote to RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin, the ‘brain’ behind this deal, which bankrupted the bank,
“Dear Fred, It is in Scottish interests for RBS to be successful, and I would like to offer any assistance my office can provide. Good luck with the bid. Yours for Scotland, Alex.”
Scotland’s secretary for finance, John Swinney, also wrote at the time that the deal was ‘an enormous achievement for RBS’ that helped make Scotland seem ‘an attractive place to do business’.
The letters make it hard for the SNP to blame London for the recession and the implosion of the Scottish banking sector.

When separate states Scotland cannot print sterling. That is illegal under international law. Scotland can use sterling, they can use dollars. They just have to earn them or borrow them or a bit of both.

Oh dear are things not looking so rosy in wee Eck Salmond's independence garden in the past week or so? certainly a few searching questions in the past week seem to have changed things more than a bit.

For example what currency would independent Scotland use ? doubts about sterling surely after what George Osborne said? and do we really want the ill-fated Euro ?

And how would Salmond & co replace all the UK defence-dependent jobs at Faslane,Coulport,Rosyth & the Clydeside shipyards which would surely disappear as Westminster would redeploy south of the border.

Salmond's big answer to everything is North Sea oil which isn't the big money-spinner he leads us to believe. Neither is the whisky industry. Between them they'd generate less than 20billion sterling or whatever currency.

One would hope for some intelligent discussion to be found within the comment section of a high brow organ's website such as this. Alas no.

Scotland is a member of the EU. It would remain a member of the EU. If that were not the case then the 'new' union - not UK since neither Wales or NI possess crowns - would find itself in the same boat. Drop the smug overtone. If Scotland found itself looking in then so would England and the remaining constituents of the union. That might please those over at The Spectator but I thought the sort to be found here were a bit more continental in their outlook.

I'm an Englishman, albeit with a bit of Welsh and Irish thrown in along the way, but I'm beginning to find this campaign of deliberate misinformation more than a little tedious. Let the Scots reclaim their independence and let the English reclaim their identity. The Scots never lost theirs while ours is maintained only by drunken louts who like to cause trouble during major football tournaments. In the meantime I ask you to please stop publishing nonsence which leads only to the debasement of your magazine.

Scots aren't stupid - they normally outperform Enland on OECD league tables. Negative campaigning has been tried and it has spectacularly backfired. Pressure the pro-union parties to put forward the positive case - using measurable data rather than airy fairy whims of handholding and standing together - or accept that their really isn't one.

Either way, please stop lying.

Ultimately, the question which monetary union the Scots will adopt is moot. If they wish to retain the pound, they will find a way to negotiate this - a Scottish pound which is pegged to Sterling but independent of the English central bank. Effectively, this is what is the case currently, as Scottish notes are only accepted in Scotland. If there was a real monetary union in Britain, the Bank of England would keep Scottish and Northern Irish notes in circulation as it happens with Euro coins.

As for the Euro, people need to remember that the negative view of it is constrained to Britain and was created by the chancellor and the press. The Euro is stronger than ever compared to the dollar and most countries are doing well in it. 5 years ago, you had to pay 1.50€ to buy one Pound Sterling, now you only need to pay 1.10€. But the British published opinion must retain the notion of a "euro crisis" because otherwise this government would have hardly anything positive to say about this country.

So let the Scots be independent and join the EU, a union in which they will have more of a say than is the case in their current union.

I'm all in favour of people taking people taking responsibility - but which people?
Why not the British people taking responsibility for Britain?
I'm also all in favour of not being told what to do - so why does Salmond want Brussels to tell Scotland what to do?