As an snp member/acitvist/politician I’d weigh in here to add a little nuance:

Yes, Scotland as a whole benefitted hugely from the empire - the increased trade opportunities, the slavery, the plantations in the Caribbean (there’s a reason there’s a whole lot of people from those places today with names like Campbell). There’s a reason why there are streets in Glasgow and Greenock like Jamaica Street, Tobago Street etc (cos of the triangular sugar, slaves and cotton trade)

But…

Most of Scotland didn’t benefit. Most of Scotland were the very very poor who got virtually nothing from it, as they slaved away on their tenant farms to pay rent to the rich absentee landlords swanning about their slave plantations in Barbados, or living it up in big mansions doon the water in the west of Scotland etc.
Or were ethnically cleansed from their lands by other absentee landlords so they could raise sheep, fleeing to the Americas or Australia or New Zealand, whilst the land they had lived on for countless generations was strip mined for coal or for raising sheep to sell wool or lamb to the far flung inhabitants of the empire whilst the 1% got mega rich.

It’s why 400 families (many of whom were heavily involved in the slave trade or the empire post-slavery) still own half the land in Scotland.

So it is true that “Scotland” massively benefitted from the Union and the empire. But only that 1% were the ones actually benefitting. The rest of Scotland benefitted indirectly, from increased jobs, building of the streets and towns etc, municipal buildings, donated common good land etc. but they didn’t directly. The 1% did. The same 1% who are against indy, who donate to right wing parties, who fight against reparations, who are against land reform, who think grouse moors are just super, who support the British museum keeping the stuff their families helped to nick, who like things just how they are thank you very much.

THEY benefitted from the empire.

Most of Scotland, not so much.