Independent Scotland won't pay back debt, Alex Salmond says
First Minister reportedly taunted the Westminster government over whether an independent Scotland should take on its share of the national debt, saying: "What are they going to do invade?"
Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond gives the thumbs up Photo: PA
11:50PM BST 09 Sep 2014
Alex Salmond has reportedly taunted the Westminster government over whether an independent Scotland should take on its share of the national debt, saying: "What are they going to do invade?"
The First Minister was said to have made the comments when pressed about how the Government would react to a decision by a newly independent Scotland to leave the Union without shouldering its share of national debt.
The comments were reported by ITV News, citing sources close to the First Minister, although they were dismissed as "total nonsense" by Mr Salmond's spokesman.
Last week Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said an independent Scotland would have to borrow money at interest rates comparable to payday loans firm Wonga if it walked away from its UK public debt share.
Mr Alexander said Scotland would be punished with extortionate borrowing costs, equivalent to those set by the payday lender, if it reneged on its debt.
The news came as Mr Salmond compared next week's Scottish referendum to the vote which brought an end to apartheid in South Africa.
Four million Scots will be asked to answer yes or no to the question: "Should Scotland be an independent country?" in the referendum.
In remarks at a rally of foreign supporters of the Yes campaign outside St Giles Cathedral on Edinburgh's Royal Mile, he said that the referendum campaign felt to him like the first elections in South Africa after the end of apartheid.
Those elections in 1994 resulted in the election of Nelson Mandela as president of South Africa, bringing down a curtain of 300 years of white rule.
Mr Salmond said: "Last Monday I saw something which I did not ever think I would see in my political life. In Dundee, I saw people queuing up and it was not a short queue, it was a long queue to register to vote.
"Almost reminiscent of the scenes in South Africa that some of us of a certain age remember from 20 years ago or so when people queued up to vote in the first free elections. I saw people queuing up to put in their registration forms to vote.
"People who frankly couldn't give a stuff about political parties or any politician are now engaged joyfully in this electoral process, and, just for the absence of any doubt, they weren't queuing up to vote No, they were queuing up to vote Yes."
A poll published this week suggested that as many as 84 per cent of Scots aged 16 and over will vote in the referendum next week far in excess of the numbers who normally vote in elections.
Earlier on Tuesday Mr Salmond urged pro-independence Scots to "pop round" for Sunday lunch with their grandparents in a concerted drive to win over Unionist pensioners.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/s...-says.html
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