Scottish independence: Yes campaign chief says ‘Give a pound for Scotland’

Independence campaigners are calling for people to give up a pound to help Scotland “achieve its economic potential”.

The appeal was made a day after Chief Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander said Scots would be £1 worse off each year under independence, using an analysis of oil revenues over the course of devolution.

His calculation was intended to expose the SNP claim that people would be £500 better off a year as a “myth”.

But Blair Jenkins, chief executive of Yes Scotland, said: “If the cost of creating a more equal and fairer Scotland was only £1, I’m certain most Scots would think that a price worth paying.”

He added: “It is remarkable that, at this early stage in the campaign, the Treasury has conceded that people in Scotland would be financially no worse off under independence.”

Mr Jenkins said: “And just think how even better off we would be were an independent Scottish Government to stop spending £250million a year on nuclear weapons,” he said.

Mr Alexander, Liberal Democrat MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, had said the benefit of oil to an independent Scotland was being overstated, adding that relying on a good year to show oil could make people £500 richer was “misleading and very foolish”.

Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon cited the £500 figure in her speech to the SNP conference in October, based on government figures for 2010-11.

Mr Alexander said: “Basing a case for Scotland to be independent forever on one good year of oil revenues is incredibly misleading and very foolish. In fact … Scots would be £1 worse off.