LAST week, the Tory Government presented what will most likely be its last Budget before a General Election.

After 14 years of Tory austerity, the state of the economy cannot be sugar-coated, it is in is a staggeringly bad state.

The UK economy is characterised by low growth, stagnant real wages, low business and public capital investment, and surging inequality.

The Scottish Government does what it can with its limited resources, but this is where Brexit Britain has led Scotland to.

After last week’s Budget, the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned: “The Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election.”

The Tories and Labour are in a state of denial on the economy.

READ MORE: Colin Beattie MSP column: Supporting a growing population

The economic outlook is a far cry from the future that was promised to Scotland by those who opposed independence in 2014.

In Scotland, the voices of the leaders of the Tories and Labour are not even remotely heard by their head offices.

Last week, Douglas Ross called for a halt in windfall tax in Scotland’s oil and gas sector; however, the UK Government chose to ignore him to extend this tax to 2029.

While I do agree that companies should be taxed fairly, the UK Government is effectively milking Scotland’s natural resources and with the profits they are funding tax cuts, massive infrastructure projects and nuclear plants in England.

But what difference would Labour make to Scotland? Not much, it would seem. Keir Starmer is in lockstep with the Tories on spending cuts and Brexit, and Scottish Labour has played its role as a branch office of the Labour Party in London.

Small countries with not nearly the same level of resources that Scotland has thrive all over Europe. It is more urgent and essential than ever that we achieve independence, or Scotland will be locked ever more tightly into the failed Brexit-based economic model.