SSP set to step away from Yes Scotland 2 if SNP backs Growth Commission proposals

Former Yes Scotland board member Colin Fox has said the Scottish Socialists will not take part in a united Yes campaign if it is based around Andrew Wilson’s Sustainable Growth Commission.

The promise comes ahead of a motion prepared for the SNP’s spring conference which could see the party endorse most of the recommendations in the Sustainable Growth Commission.

It is seen as part of moves by the SNP leadership to make the case for Scotland to have its own currency after independence.

Finance Secretary Derek Mackay, who sat on the commission, told the National: "I think it’s really important that the party backs the power of work that’s been put in to answer many of the questions we were challenged on in 2014.”

However, Fox joins fellow former Yes Scotland board members Patrick Harvie, the Scottish Greens co-convener, and musician and blogger Pat Kane in warning such a move risks splitting the pro-independence movement.

In a statement, Fox said Andrew Wilson’s report proposed austerity economics.

“Pandering to a wealthy elite not only risks losing the 45 per cent support we won in 2014, it makes the task of winning over Scotland’s working class majority impossible. And without them YES cannot triumph,” he said.

“The Scottish Socialist Party played an important part in the Yes campaign of 2014, one that was widely appreciated.

“I sat on the Yes Scotland Advisory Board and played a constructive, collegiate role. But we will be unable to do so again if the Growth Commission plan is put at the heart of Yes2.”

The Growth Commission report proposed Scotland could only move to its own currency after meeting six tests, including a commitment to cut the budget deficit to three per cent in five years.

Harvie has criticised the commission’s “right-of-centre economic agenda”.