Stay united for the most important vote of our lives - Danny Alexander

WITH only 21 days to go to the polling stations opening in the independence referendum, the Yes and No campaigns are turning up the heat in their final efforts to win your votes. This week frontmen Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling went head-to-head in the second national TV debate. And the Highland News Group asked each side to put up a leading North figure to put their case to readers.

Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury and MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, responded:

THE Independence Referendum will be the most important vote that will take place in our lifetimes.

There are many good, logical, fact based reasons to stay part of the world’s sixth largest economy. But this is about much more than logic. Emotion has its place in this debate.

I am as proud and patriotic a Scot as any nationalist. I’m also a proud Highlander.

I want the best future for Scotland. And, for me, that means a United Kingdom with a united future.

When I was in High School in Lochaber in the 1980s, every day the school bus would pass the Commando Memorial near Spean Bridge. Inscribed on the monument are the words: “United we Conquer”. For me, this sums up the whole debate.

Separation would be going against the tide of history.

Devolution offers the best of both worlds, allowing us to shape our domestic agenda whilst sharing the risks and rewards of the UK family.

I, like the majority of Scots, want more powers for the Scottish Parliament – particularly fiscal and tax raising powers.

I also want to see some of the powers that our communities have lost to the central belt returned to the Highlands.

Scotland is stronger, more prosperous, more successful and more influential as part of the United Kingdom.

Nationalism puts at risk so much of what makes our country great and separation, don’t forget, would be permanent.

It would have profound implications for life in Scotland – and life in the rest of the UK.

By staying together, the Scottish and the UK economies can continue to grow and prosper. This is where the logic returns.

Take the currency issue. As part of the UK, Scotland uses the pound – one of the world’s oldest, strongest and most stable currencies.

So we can keep that – a currency backed by 31 million taxpayers and backed by the Bank of England. Or we could vote for the unknown, because we still don’t know the nationalists’ plan for the currency.

Ask any school kid “what’s your country’s currency?” and they should be able to answer.

It’s a pretty simple question, but one that Alex Salmond still refused to answer.

A currency union will not happen, and Scots have to know this before we go to the polls. As we’ve seen in the euro area, it simply would not work without a full political, economic and fiscal union, which, of course, is precisely what the nationalists want to dissolve.

Our fully integrated, borderless single UK market border helps employees and employers alike and is enormously efficient for our economy. 70% of Scotland’s trade is with England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

That’s right – Scotland trades more with the rest of the UK than with every other country in the world combined. I don’t want to see any barriers thrown up that will make that crucial trade more difficult.

Being part of something larger isn’t just a help in the good times, it helps when times are tough.

It was the broad shoulders of the UK that made it possible to help two huge Scottish banks during the financial crisis.

And we are also able to invest in Scottish strengths with the full backing of our neighbours.

In the last four years alone, we have seen £14 billion of UK tax-payer money invested in renewables, including the Beatrice Offshore Wind farm in the Outer Moray Firth. And of course, as a Highland MP, I am particularly proud of the support the UK helps provide the hugely successful Scotch whisky industry.

It is these benefits which gives Scots the best of both worlds.

As we enter the last few weeks of the referendum campaign, it is the combination of emotion, logic and the glimpse into the future of what a Scotland with more powers in a vibrant UK that will convince people that staying together, working together, continuing together, offers the best future for Scotland.

“United we conquer” – it rings as true today as it did all those years ago.

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