AN INDEPENDENT Scotland would be able to keep the pound and achieve a AAA credit rating, Alex Salmond will say today.
In a second keynote speech on independence during his summer tour, the First Minister will compare an independent Scotland with the Isle of Man.
Man – which has its own currency, the Manx pound, but pegged to sterling – retained the valued top credit rating with agency Moody's when the UK's was downgraded earlier this year.
Delivering the chief minister's international lecture, Mr Salmond is expected to say: "The No campaign which self describes itself as 'Project Fear' once argued that the UK's AAA status was crucial to Scotland's economic prospects and the reason for rejecting Scottish independence.
"Now that AAA has been junked they haven't even withdrawn the leaflets which purveyed such nonsense."
He will say the Isle of Man's ability to retain an AAA status, which allows governments to borrow at lower rates of interest, "makes a mockery" of UK Government arguments against independence.
Mr Salmond will also insist his plan to enter a currency union with the rest of the UK, should Scots vote for independence next year, would give Scotland "full fiscal powers," despite warnings that, if agreed by the rest of Britain, it would place severe constraints on economic policy north of the Border.
The Isle of Man, which has a population of 85,000 is governed by its own parliament, the Tynwald. Defence and foreign affairs are the responsibility of the UK.
A spokesman for Better Together said: "Alex Salmond seems to be losing the plot.
"Yesterday he announced that his plans for separation would be written by a fiction writer then he said Ireland wasn't a foreign country.
"Now he is looking at an island with a population the size of Paisley as an example for a nation of five million.
"The Isle of Man is a Crown Dependency and is not in a currency union with the UK. It has no central bank and no lender of last resort.
"Is he honestly trying to tell the people of Scotland that it is a good idea to have no-one standing behind our banks and to have no say in how our mortgage or savings rates are set?"
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