The economy and trade
The case for independence
- Comparable independent European countries are more productive than the UK: in 2020, GDP per hour worked ranged from 111.8 in Ireland to 61.3 in the UK.9
- The Scottish Government plans a Building a New Scotland Fund of up to £20 billion over the first decade of independence.5
- Apart from Ireland, all ten comparator countries invest more in research and development than the UK.9
How it works now
Most economic levers, including monetary policy, most business taxation, trade policy and employment law, are reserved to Westminster.3
The rest of the UK is Scotland's largest export market: 60% of Scotland's exports in 2023, an estimated £55.4 billion.4
The challenges
How Scotland would meet them
- A Building a New Scotland Fund of “up to £20 billion over the first decade of independence”, to “reinvest oil and gas revenues, alongside other windfall income”, and to borrow if necessary.5
- Trade with the rest of the UK would be governed by the EU–UK trade arrangements in place at the time.2
Source: Building a New Scotland, Papers 3 and 7
What independent analysts say
The IFS said the fund would in practice be “financed by additional borrowing”, given the deficits expected in the early years, and that faster growth was “far from certain and would be easier said than done”.6
Still to be settled
What checks would there be on goods crossing the border with England?
Independent analysis for UK in a Changing Europe found that, if Scotland rejoined the EU while the rest of the UK stayed outside it, goods crossing the border would face “customs procedures and other bureaucratic checks... especially on heavily regulated products like agri-foods and medicine.” It said this “may not lead to the kind of lorry queues we have seen in Dover or Calais,” since road transport has more capacity than cross-Channel ferries, but that “the cumulative effect of these checks could be disruptive nonetheless, adding costs to businesses exporting across the border in both directions.”7
How reliable are comparisons with other small countries?
Comparisons have limits, because every country's history, economy and resources differ from Scotland's. The economist Tony Yates, formerly of the Bank of England, said of the Scottish Government's comparison with small, wealthy independent countries that “the SNP pitch pointing to some small rich countries and saying 'if we get independence we can do that' is ridiculous”, calling it “persuasive nonsense” and noting that some of the comparator countries have features Scotland does not currently have, such as Ireland's lack of universal free healthcare and Denmark's higher taxes.8 The Scottish Government's paper does not address these differences.9
Sources
- Scottish Government, Building a New Scotland: A stronger economy with independence (Paper 3), 17 October 2022.
- Scottish Government, Building a New Scotland: An independent Scotland in the EU (Paper 7), 17 November 2023.
- Scotland Act 1998, Schedule 5 (Reserved matters).
- Scottish Government, Exports Statistics Scotland 2023, published 25 November 2025.
- Scottish Government, Building a New Scotland: A stronger economy with independence, “The Building a New Scotland Fund”, 17 October 2022.
- Institute for Fiscal Studies (David Phillips), An immediate response to the Scottish Government’s paper on independence and the Scottish economy, 17 October 2022.
- Nicola McEwen, UK in a Changing Europe, Scotland, independence, Brexit and the border, 8 February 2022.
- Tony Yates (economist, formerly of the Bank of England), quoted by Michael Baird, Scottish Daily Express, Economist ridicules SNP's “Scexit” plan, 20 June 2022.
- Scottish Government, Independence in the modern world. Wealthier, happier, fairer: why not Scotland? — 10 key facts (Paper 1), 14 June 2022.