The pound in your pocket...

So an independent Scotland could not keep the pound?  Yes, they could!  What they couldn't keep (without Westminster's agreement) is the pound sterling. There's nothing stopping them calling their own currency the pound (although you can't help but feel it would be a recipe for confusion) but it would be their own currency, finding it's own value, and not underpinned by the Bank of England. And this I think is the nub of the matter - if the Scots were to keep the pound sterling, and at some future point their economy were to go pear-shaped, we (England and Wales) would be forced to bail them out in order to protect our own currency.  This is why we are not prepared to allow it to happen, and the cynic in me reckons this is why Alex Salmond is so keen for it to happen!