"The [McCrone] report argued that the oil discoveries in the North Sea had transformed the case for #ScottishIndependence and demolished the old belief that Scotland did not possess the economic resources to go it alone.
"It was political dynamite as McCrone concluded that “for the first time since the Act of Union was passed, it can now be credibly argued that Scotland’s economic advantage lies in its repeal”."
"[Scotland] would tend to be in chronic surplus to a quite embarrassing degree and its currency would become the hardest in Europe, with the exception perhaps of the Norwegian kroner."
Read the 1975 McCrone Report in full. Then reflect on why it was buried by successive UK governments for three decades and is still taboo at Westminster.
"The McCrone Report coverage has no paywall. We believe it is vitally important that everybody can access it."
"With a surge of support for the SNP now reaching 30% in the General Election of October 1974, the UK [Labour] Government was horrified at the thought of the Scottish people becoming alerted to their nation’s mineral wealth. It decided that McCrone’s work was to be buried in the deepest recesses of its archives, never to see the light of day again."
"The UK and Norway both discovered oil in the early 1970s, and have extracted roughly the same total amount of oil and gas. Norway has a sovereign wealth fund amounting to $1.4 trillion. The UK, and consequently Scotland, has none. Where's it all gone?"