GBP/USD falls to $1.618 after Scottish ‘yes’ campaign takes lead in polls
The pound has slumped to a 10-month low after the yes campaign took the lead in the opinion polls just 10 days before the Scottish independence vote.
Westminster leaders will on Monday scramble to agree an offer of more powers to Scotland if it remains within the union in an effort to prevent a yes vote in next week’s referendum.
But what the chancellor, George Osborne,described as “a credible timetable and process” to develop further devolved powers did not prevent a wave of early selling on the foreign exchanges on Monday morning.
Sterling fell sharply, losing almost one and a half cents against the US dollar to reach $1.618, the lowest level since November 2013.
The surge of support for independence also sent jitters through the stock market, as shares in companies with large Scottish interest suffered sharp falls in early trading.
David Cameron will not travel to Scotland this week to campaign, but party leaders will make a joint declaration soon on the timetable for the further transfer of powers from Westminster to Scotland, the UK prime minister’s spokesman said.
The announcement would not cover the parameters of that transfer since that has already been announced, he said. Cameron refused to say if this would involve the three party leaders appearing on a joint platform.
Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, denied that the Better Together campaign would try to “pull a rabbit out of the hat” in the face of declining support.
He also downplayed the significance of Osborne’s announcement this week on the timing of further devolution.
“This is about the mechanics of the procedural steps and the timetable. It isn’t about the Westminster parties seeking to pull a rabbit out of a hat. It’s a relatively straightforward, incremental step … All that’s being talked about this week is demonstrating to the people in Scotland the nuts and bolts of how [devolution] would work. That seems to me a perfectly logical thing to unveil this week.”
