JUST two per cent of Scots think their country’s economy is on the right track and no change is needed, according to a new poll.
Published in conjunction with the launch of a new think tank which will focus on Scotland’s economy, the YouGov poll also found that eight in 10 Scots think “wealth is concentrated in the hands of too few people”.
The new think tank, named Future Economy Scotland, launches on Wednesday after securing support from Energy Transition Fund, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, and comedian Frankie Boyle, among others.
Its co-directors, Laurie Macfarlane and Miriam Brett, said Scotland needed to embrace bold ideas to transform its economy.
The YouGov poll of 1002 Scots adults, released alongside the launch, suggests that the public agrees.
Just 2% of everyone polled agreed that “Scotland’s economy is broadly on the right path, and no changes are needed” – while 60% said “Scotland’s economy is not on the right path”.
Among those who said the economy is on the wrong path, three-quarters (74%) said that “major” change was needed.
Elsewhere, a total of 81% of respondents said that the nation’s wealth was concentrated in the hands of too few people, while just 14% said the distribution of wealth “is about right”.
Macfarlane, co-director of Future Economy Scotland, said: “The majority of Scots agree that Scotland’s economy is not on the right path, and that wealth is concentrated in the hands of too few people.
“It is clear that we cannot overcome the challenges Scotland faces by making minor tweaks to the status quo. Instead, we must embrace bold new ideas to transform the economy.”
And his colleague Brett said: “Future Economy Scotland’s mission is to develop transformative policies that decarbonise, democratise and decommodify Scotland’s economy, aiming to elevate the level of ambition and maximise the potential of the Scottish Parliament for a sustainable, just and democratic future.”
Macfarlane is the former economics editor for openDemocracy and a policy fellow at University College London’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. He co-authored Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing, in 2017 made the Financial Times’s list of the best economics books of the year.
The year before, Macfarlane published a Blueprint for a Scottish National Investment Bank.
Brett, a former senior economic advisor for the SNP at Westminster, sits on the advisory board for Common Wealth, a London-based think tank. She was formerly its director of research and advocacy, and also stood for the SNP in the Orkney and Shetland constituency.
The two have previously collaborated on a report into net zero, a just transition, and community wealth building for Community Land Scotland.
Their new Future Economy Scotland project has launched as a “non-partisan think tank that aims to create a new economy that is democratic, sustainable and just”.
It does not have a formal stance on Scotland’s constitutional future.
It is understood that Boyle helped the think tank early on, and is not an active funder moving forward. Future Economy Scotland said it aimed to be fully transparent with its funding.
The YouGov poll of 1002 Scots adults was carried out online from April 17-20.
