An independent Scotland could be better off within a decade of leaving the UK, Scottish Finance Secretary Kate Forbes has said.Forbes was speaking as hustings continued in the contest to replace Nicola Sturgeon – with fellow leadership hopeful Humza Yousaf saying he would be not just Scotland’s first minister but “first activist” for independence.Meanwhile Ash Regan, the former community safety minister who is the third candidate standing to be SNP leader, said if she is voted into the job she would seek to “heal the rifts” within the party.She also pledged to “relight the fires” of the cross-party Yes campaign that operated in the run up to the 2014 referendum and would “reach out to the wider movement”.Regan told the hustings event in Dumfries that she had felt a “sense of grief” after Scots had voted to stay in the UK in 2014.The SNP backbencher said: “I don’t want us to be thinking about that past referendum and thinking we’ve missed the boat, and that we have got to keep waiting.
I want to get us there as fast as possible.”But to achieve that she said the party needs to “change direction” and to “act differently”.Regan said: “I don’t think we can keep going the way we have been over the last few years, we need a different plan and we need to put that into action.”She said under her leadership the first line on any SNP manifesto would state that a vote for the party would mean “Scotland would be voting for Edinburgh and Westminster in a room” to begin independence negotiations.She told party members: “The referendum is not the gold standard here, the ballot box is the gold standard, and that is what we need to progress towards.”Regan said other nations would recognise this, saying: “International law is pragmatic and
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