SNP plans to keep the pound initially after independence would see “probably the most dangerous experiment in global monetary history", the party’s conference has heard.

Dalkeith activist Tim Rideout, convener of the Scottish Currency Group, told delegates that “no advanced economy has ever sought to use the currency of another nation”.

He went on: “To try to do so would be to start probably the most dangerous experiment in global monetary history."

In 2014, the SNP said an independent Scotland could keep the pound in a currency union with the rest of the UK, but then Tory Chancellor George Osborne ruled it out.

The party now says an independent Scotland could still use sterling, but outside a currency union, in a  looser arrangement known as sterlingisation.

The Growth Commission, the SNP’s 2018 blueprint for independence, said Scotland should use sterling this way for around a decade until its deficit was under control.

Only then should a separate Scottish currency be contemplated.

However the following year, SNP members defied the party leadership and said a new currency should be introduced “as soon as practicable”, albeit subject to a suite of economic tests.

Mr Rideout tabled a motion saying “that in anticipation of a vote for independence an enabling Bill for the establishment of a Scottish Central Bank now be drafted”. 

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He said a Central Bank would be a key component of a new currency as well as a prerequisite for an independent Scotland to rejoin the European Union.

“Using sterling rules out any EU membership application,” he said.

He said it would be “inexcusable” if Scotland was not completely ready to set up a central bank, which would issue currency and set interest rates, after a Yes vote. 

He said: “We need to follow the tried, trusted and safe route taken by almost every country that has become independent, and that is to have our own currency.

“We will use the Scottish pound and not the English pound.”

Seconding the motion, Aberdeenshire activist Kairin van Sweeden, executive director at Modern Money Scotland, said: “Without fiscal and monetary freedom, we do not have political freedom. Our own currency is the tool that enables us to choose. 

“To be an independent  country, Scotland must have its own central bank and currency as soon as possible.”

Despite the experience of other countries doing so, Dumfries East activist Simon Jones claimed that Scotland could not go bust with its own currency.

He said: “Having our own currency is pretty cool as there are a variety of possibilities and an underscoring of security that we wouldn’t have if we depended on someone else’s money.

“Any government that has its own currency and that only borrows in its own currency can’t go bust and can’t be the target of currency speculators.” 

Mr Rideout’s motion was passed with a lengthy amendment saying the enabling Bill would be informed by a party National Assembly “on the regulation, culture and practice of banking”.

This was intended to “reassure votes that Scotland’s monetary system will daw upon the most effective practices already being applied in independent countries”.

Mr Rideout, who urged members to support the amendment, tweeted afterwards: "I hope the sterlingisation zombie now has a stake through the heart."

The currency issue divides the current Scottish Government, with the Greens more gung-ho about a new currency than the SNP.

In May’s Holyrood election campaign, Green co-leader Patrick Harvie, now a minister, said in a debate that work on a new currency should start “immediately” after a Yes vote.

READ MORE: SNP and Greens disagree over Indy currency plans in final TV debate

But Nicola Sturgeon said in the same debate that an independent Scotland would use the pound “for as long as necessary” and the timetable was “not absolutely fixed”.

Pamela Nash, chief executive of Scotland in Union, said: "The SNP’s chaotic currency plans put people’s wages, mortgages and pensions at risk.

“The nationalists have no answers to the big questions about the impact of scrapping the pound and introducing a new, untested currency.

“The only way to keep the pound and protect people’s finances is to remain part of the UK, ensuring we can focus on investing in schools and hospitals and tackling the climate emergency, rather than the uncertainty of leaving one of the world’s strongest currencies.”