ONE of the world’s top investment managers has backed Scottish independence and the Growth Commission’s proposals for the future of Scotland’s economy.

Michael O’Sullivan, former managing director of Credit Suisse’s Private Banking and Wealth Management Division based in Zurich, says that Brexit has “detonated” history in these islands and that Scotland would be “better alone”.

In a wide-ranging new book called The Levelling – What’s Next After Globalisation, O’Sullivan suggests there will be a new framework for trade and that a “new world order” will be established in politics, finance, economics and geopolitics.

READ MORE: Scottish independence: Majority of Scots Remain voters back Yes

The world is already changing, he told the Sunday National: “Brexit has detonated history in our part of the world, and this has opened people’s minds to the extent to which the world is changing and also to the extent that old relations (between countries and regions) can be broken and new ones remade.

“One global trend that is obvious now is the way in which the world will be multipolar as opposed to global. What I mean by this is that world affairs will be dominated by three large regions – the EU, US and China who will do things in an increasingly different way.

“Scotland now has to choose at least two things. One is whether it needs to be independent so that it can better manage its affairs in a changing world, and second where does it want to sit in terms of where power and trade flow.

“One last point is that the chaos of the Brexit debate, and the lack of real attention to Scotland during this, suggests that it is better alone.”

Until May, O’Sullivan was chief investment officer for the International Wealth Management Division of Credit Suisse who he joined in July 2007 from State Street Global Markets.

O’Sullivan also spent more than 10 years as a global strategist institutions and taught finance at Princeton and Oxford Universities. He was educated at University College Cork in Ireland and Balliol College in Oxford, where he obtained M.Phil and D.Phil degrees as a Rhodes Scholar. He is an independent member of Ireland’s National Economic Social Council.

O’Sullivan said: “The Growth Commission is a sensible idea. One of the key realities it recognises is the importance of paying attention to the model of governance and policy making in the small, advanced economies of the world – the likes of Sweden, Singapore and Switzerland.

“One of the contributors to the Growth Commission, David Skilling of Landfall Strategy, makes the point that small, advanced economies increasingly face the same problems, and in most cases are good are producing solutions. Scotland is right to stay focused on this approach.”

Keith Brown, the SNP’s depute leader welcomed the intervention: “This is a serious contribution – people are increasingly looking at the Brexit mess and seeing the enormous potential independence offers Scotland.

“The Sustainable Growth Commission showed how independence can give Scotland the tools to match the success of other small, independent countries – rather than being tied to a Brexit-obsessed UK.

“It’s no wonder the Tories are running scared of independence.”

The Levelling: What’s Next After Globalization by Michael O’Sullivan (PublicAffairs) is out now.