Fact check: would independence cut Scotland’s energy bills?

Good old Humza Yousaf: the one-man walking cure for imposter syndrome. Scotland’s First Minister was out making the case for independence this weekend, telling a Scexit rally that ‘the people of this country are not suffering from a cost-of-living crisis, they’re suffering from a cost of the Union crisis.’ When asked by reporters to justify his claim, Yousaf – the thinking man’s James Dornan – ignored such trivialities as the Barnett formula to claim that:

This cost of living crisis is actually a cost of Westminster crisis. The suffering that you’re having to endure with high energy bills, being fuel poorer in an energy rich country like Scotland, that is entirely linked to the fact that we are not independent.

So, is he correct? The answer, shockingly, is no. Unit rates for electricity – the most significant factor in energy bills – are substantially higher in Ireland than in Scotland. As Sam Taylor of These Islands has pointed