Independence is about the right of people in Scotland to decide their own future
- We’re the ideal size
- Scotland is a wealthy nation with a big economy
- We’re educated and talented
- We have extraordinary energy resources
- We export high quality produce and goods
- We are at the cutting edge of the industries of the future
- We’re big enough, rich enough and smart enough – even opponents of independence believe so
With independence, the democratic right to get the governments we vote for will be guaranteed. And the government of an independent Scotland will be able to use the full range of economic powers available to all other countries. How successful we are will, of course, depend on our efforts and the decisions we make. But the evidence demonstrates the potential we have to build a more prosperous, fairer country.
Independent countries our size also tend to have a happier, fairer and more equal society.
Scotland’s national income in 2019 was a huge £177 billion. On a per head basis, that makes us wealthier than rich countries such as New Zealand, Japan and Italy.
Scotland has some of the best universities in the world, and we’re proud to support students by enabling access to education based on the ability to learn, rather than the ability to pay.
Scotland has up to 25 per cent of Europe’s tidal power potential, and 25 per cent of Europe’s offshore wind potential. And Scotland has a huge positive story to tell on renewables – which provided the equivalent of 96% of Scotland’s gross electricity consumption in 2020.
Scotland is the only UK nation to have internationally exported more goods than it has imported every year since records began – in fact, we export nearly double per head than the rest of the UK.
70 satellites for the space industry were manufactured in Glasgow in 2019, more than in any other European city. In fact, Glasgow builds more satellites than anywhere else outside of California. Our life sciences cluster is one of the biggest in Europe.
The size of our economy, our highly educated workforce, the abundance of natural resources, and cutting-edge innovation – with strengths in both manufacturing and services – all demonstrate that Scotland’s got what it takes to become a prosperous and thriving independent nation.