The SNP's Vision for a Successful Scotland

Scotland has so much potential. We all want our economy to thrive, our public services to be there when we need them and for our children to grow up safe, secure and well educated.

However, the Scottish Parliament doesn't have the powers to deliver many of these things. As a result, we cannot create the kind of country we all want to live in. It's not that we can't manage it, we just need to be given the powers and the opportunity to achieve this goal.

We only need look across the North Sea to countries like Norway and Denmark to see how independence improves things - both with similar populations to Scotland, both prosperous and both economically strong. Closer to home we have Ireland a country on the up in every sense. These countries are independent and able to decide their own economic policy, defence policy and interact with the EU as they choose.

Scotland cannot follow suit as we have to do what London wants and toe a policy line that is designed to boost the southeast of England a nowhere else.

We want to end this unsustainable situation and propose that Scotland should enjoy all of the powers that other countries have and take for granted.

A small independent country is not a weak state; Scotland would be in a better position to react to world trends and events and able to design our own set of policies without the need to take account of the rest of the UK.

Every other nation uses the normal tools of financial independence to give their firms a competitive edge.

The SNP want to end Labour's dependency culture and earn our way to a more prosperous future and move on to take control of our own economy.

Independence is not a some distant unachievable concept, it's something that will transform the lives of all people living in Scotland. Many Scots live in poverty, many Scots have a lower life expectancy. This is wrong and the current party and their flawed constitutional system is failing Scotland. It's that simple.