Why Scotland can do better with independence

By Alex Salmond

Scotland is underperforming. We have the lowest long-term growth in the European Union and over the past 10 years – the Gordon Brown era – our growth has been almost 30 per cent lower than that of the UK as a whole. Growth is the key to a flourishing country. We only have to look to Ireland to see the transforming effect of annual growth rates averaging almost 8 per cent – four times the Scottish rate.

The result is that too many new businesses in Scotland struggle to survive, average wages are lower, households have less money to spend and each year 25,000 young people leave home to find work and opportunities elsewhere.

Twenty-five years ago, Ireland was the poor relation of these isles. However, with the Dublin government free to choose the right policies to give Ireland an economic edge – lower corporation tax, full engagement with the EU and a national investment in skills and education – it has soared past the UK to become one of the world’s wealthiest half-dozen nations. Last month, Ireland was judged the fourth best place in the world to live by the United Nations, leaving Britain (and Scotland) trailing.

Sustainable growth is the central objective of economic policy for any country and it is Mr Brown’s proudest boast of his record as UK chancellor. By the same measurement, he has failed miserably in his home country.

The devolved government in Edinburgh is unable to move the most important economic levers. It cannot lower corporate tax rates like Ireland or effectively husband our huge natural resources like Norway. It is powerless to make the necessary improvements that could see Scotland join the premier league of successful countries.

What frustrates me most about Scottish Labour politicians is their insularity, illustrated by their depressingly low ambition for our nation. They seem proud when growth figures almost touch the UK average, but over the cycle leave Scotland trailing each of our near international neighbours. They boast of high employment, but seem to forget that includes more low-wage, low-skill, part-time positions. They claim, wrongly, that Scotland is subsidised by the generosity of the London Treasury, euphemistically describe it as a “dividend” and seem content with that state of affairs.

Never have so many people spent so much time desperately attempting to “prove” that their country is subsidised. In the Labour looking-glass, world oil revenues are “falling”, the oil price is about to collapse and the resource is about to run out. In reality, oil revenues are rising (even in the pre-Budget report), we are only about halfway through the North Sea oil revolution in resource terms and the expectation is for a continuing rise in prices over the medium term. The Scottish National party’s approach to oil is to control the resource for the long term – as Norway has done through a capital investment fund – not the grab everything you can, “boom and bust“ attitude of the chancellor.

Scotland’s economic performance today is not good enough for any self-respecting Scot. We urgently need a new management and a new, fresh approach. We can be more successful: we can create a wealthier, fairer and more dynamic nation.

All around us, we have examples of successful independent countries. The human development index is a measurement by the UN that looks at both the performance of a nation’s economy and the success of its society. To our west is Ireland, the fourth most successful country in the index; to our north, Iceland, the second; and to our east Norway, for the sixth year in a row the top country for quality of life. These nations, all also in the top six in terms of gross domestic product per head, form an arc of prosperity that Scotland must aspire to join.

Scotland has as much talent, energy and enthusiasm as these nations. Our people are as skilled; our geography, if anything, offers more advantages. Only Norway could claim to match Scotland in terms of natural resources.

Why are these nations powering ahead, while Scotland’s economy slumbers? I believe independence is the key. Norway, Ireland, Iceland, Finland, Denmark and Sweden are all comparable nations to Scotland, each with the freedom to find the best way to enable their economy to compete.

Not one would leave their success to another nation or tolerate the whining defeatism that is the miserable excuse for unionism in Scotland – the extraordinary proposition that somehow Scotland is uniquely incapable of managing a successful economy. We have tried devolution and, after almost eight years, we know its shortcomings. It is time for Scotland and England to be equal, independent partners, neighbours and friends.