INDEPENDENCE would be a "disruptive shock" on the same scale as the oil crisis of the 1970s or the 2008 financial crash, Jim Murphy claimed yesterday ...

insisting that he wasn't being negative.

The Labour MP for East Renfrewshire and shadow international development secretary also likened leaving the UK to the impact of Margaret Thatcher's government on Scots heavy industry in the 1980s.

He told the Scottish Labour conference in Perth: "We should make no mistake, this would be a disruptive shock. That's not negative to say that.

"In all these disruptive shocks we find those people who pay most are those who can least afford it, the people furthest from power, the people with least influence.

"Those are the people who pay the longest when it comes to any disruptive shock. Research shows that those families will be £1000 worse off as a consequence of independence.''