A currency union could not bind the "sovereign will" of the UK if Scotland becomes independent, Labour MP Douglas Alexander has said.
Mr Alexander addressed the currency issue in a live STV debate this evening ahead of the independence referendum on September 18.
It featured two teams of three representatives from the Yes and No camps, with each side nominating one person to go head to head on different issues.
Mr Alexander faced Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to debate the economy and addressed the question of the currency.
Mr Alexander, for Better Together, said that a currency union would leave Scotland with fewer powers.
He said: "The difficulty with the argument that the sovereign will of the Scottish people is a currency union is that the sovereign will applies here in Scotland.
"It can't bind what would be the sovereign will of a separate country after independence. That would be the rest of the United Kingdom so in that sense if Scotland makes its choice, I hope it doesn't, but if we make this choice to be independent on September 18, what then are the realistic choices?
"I don't believe a currency union is in Scotland's interests, that's why I continue to say I don't think a currency union makes sense. It's less powers not more powers here in Scotland."
Last week Professor Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winner who was chairman of former US president Bill Clinton's council of economic advisers, said a currency union between an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK could work, and dismissed the refusal of the main Westminster parties to agree to such a deal as "bluffs".
Responding to Mr Alexander tonight Ms Sturgeon said: "It was Bill Clinton's senior economic adviser who said last week the Westminster position was 'a bluff'.
"I do think we're seeing the No campaign's bluff called on this issue.
"To believe that Westminster would engage in what the principal of Glasgow University described as 'economic vandalism' would be to believe that they would cut off their nose to spite their face, to put transaction costs on their businesses, to deny themselves the value of our exports and to let an independent Scotland start debt free.
"I don't think they'll do that."
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