Jim Murphy: Independence a ‘disruptive shock’

Scottish independence would be a “disruptive shock” for the nation on the same scale as the oil crisis of the 1970s or the financial crisis that sparked the global recession, a leading Labour MP said.

Jim Murphy also likened the impact of Scotland leaving the UK to the decline of heavy industry in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government.

Mr Murphy, the shadow international development secretary, said: “In my lifetime there have been three enormous, disruptive shocks – the oil crisis of the 1970s, the industrial crisis and shock of Thatcher in the 1980s, and the financial shock of 2008.

Scotland is now faced with the potential for a fourth shock of that nature – Scottish independence.”

Meanwhile, Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is to make a speech in Wales tomorrow (Mon) where she will argue the No campaign is undermining its own case by demolishing the very concept of the UK as a partnership of equals.

She is expected to say: “Those opposed to independence claim that the UK as it currently stands is an equal partnership of nations and of people.

“But in its attempts to scare voters in Scotland, the No campaign is destroying the very idea that the UK is a partnership of equals.”