THE head of the 2014 pro-independence campaign has said its currency stance was “disastrous”.
Dennis Canavan insisted plans to share the pound in a currency union left the Yes side as a “hostage to fortune”.
It comes amid ongoing splits within the SNP over its latest proposals to keep using the pound after independence, before eventually moving to a new currency.
Mr Canavan, the former chairman of Yes Scotland, told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland: “We ought to be honest enough and humble enough to admit that mistakes were made.
“The currency thing, for example, turned out to be disastrous. I mean you cannot have a currency union with another partner unless the other partner agrees to that currency union.
“So it was a hostage to fortune, it was giving our opponents - our unionists opponents - a veto over the policy, so that was a mistake.
“I think that lessons have been learned now, that we’ve got to come up with a better currency option and I’m glad to see that support is growing and seems to be accepted now within members of the Scottish Government [for] the idea of an independent currency in Scotland.”
Mr Canavan urged Nicola Sturgeon to call another independence referendum before the next Holyrood elections in 2021, but said he could understand her caution.
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