Growth Commission ‘strengthens UK’S case’

The SNP’S Sustainable Growth Commission report actually strengthens the economic case for Scotland remaining in the UK, according to a new study.

The analysis by pro-uk think tank These Islands found that the SNP report illustrates many of the downsides of independence while “highlighting (albeit reluctantly) the economic benefits of our inevitably flawed but enduring 300 year-old union”.

It also said that the “growth potential” claims made in the SNP report are unrealistic and based on misleading analysis, and that claims that the economic model proposed is “anti-austerity” do not stand up to scrutiny.

The SNP’S Sustainable Growth Commission report, published in May, claimed that living standards in Scotland could “equal the best small countries in the world” within a generation of independence.

These Islands chairman Kevin Hague said: “The Growth Commission’s report contains highly misleading analysis, fails to address the key economic questions and – we presume unintentionally – actually strengthens the economic case for Scotland remaining in the UK.”

An SNP spokesman said: “If the Growth Commission’s approach had been followed over the last decade, the £2.6 billion of cuts to the Scottish Government’s budget by Westminster would have been completely reversed, with the prospect of additional public spending beyond that.”