THE head of one of Scotland’s best known brands has claimed his fellow business leaders are “fed up” with Nicola Sturgeon’s pursuit of independence.
Les Montgomery, chief executive of Highland Spring, yesterday said the SNP government should be helping the Tories achieve the best possible Brexit instead.
He said: "Businesses are fed up. The Scottish Government should be getting on with the job they are there to do. Focusing on employment, investment, those kinds of things.
"Independence isn't the job that the Scottish Government is supposed to be doing.
“We are a British company, we're based in Scotland but we're a British company.
"We send 85 per cent of our products to England, and we are fortunate to consider 'local' to mean 'British'. That's how it should be. We hope to see that continue."
In 2012, the bottled water boss was held up as example by the No campaign, after he opposed independence said Scotland didn’t “have the scale to operate as a lone state”.
The First Minister last week said she would "reset" her plans for a second referendum, delaying the start of a vital Holyrood bill until at least autumn 2018, once the terms of Brexit were clear.
However the pause failed to satisfy her opponents, as Ms Sturgeon also made it clear a referendum remained a live option.
Labour’s Jackie Baillie said: “Businesses across Scotland are tired of the SNP government’s obsession with independence and the damage the uncertainty of another referendum is doing to our economy. We need a government focused on investing in our economy and creating jobs in Scotland, not constitutional game playing.”
Meanwhile former health secretary Alex Neil has said the SNP must make a fresh case for independence if it is to “resuscitate” the stalled Yes campaign.
Mr Neil also said his party needed to overhaul its offer to voters if it was win the 2021 Holyrood election, with long-term proposals required on health, tax and the economy.
He said the general election, in which the SNP lost a third of MPs and almost half a million votes, had show the party had to “adapt and change”.
He told the Sunday Herald, the Herald’s sister paper, he said: “I don’t think it’s gone wrong for the SNP, but we need to resuscitate the campaign for Yes.
“One of the mistakes we made is that after the 2014 referendum we stopped making the case for independence.
“I think we need to correct that mistake and run a massive campaign over the next few years to try and persuade many more people of the case for independence.
“One of the things that we need to put right is that we’ve put the process before the substantive case.
“The referendum is a technique and independence is a strategic objective, so let’s stick to the strategic objective.
“The SNP needs to reach out much more... to the other independence groups such as the Scottish Independence Convention, Women for Independence and Business for Scotland.”
Despite Ms Sturgeon saying last week a referendum was “likely” before the 2021 election, Mr Neil cast doubt on her timetable, saying the SNP winning a majority in that election was the best bet for a second referendum.
The UK government has refused to transfer referendum powers to Holyrood until there is tangible proof most Scots want a new vote.
He said: “I believe we can get that overall majority in 2021 but there are certain things we need to do. We’ve got to put in plans for the longer term of reforming the health service, finances and taxation, industrial policy. We have to improve living standards for everyone.”
Mr Neil also suggested Scottish ministers should take the UK government to court over the £1billion deal struck between the Tories and the DUP to keep Theresa May in power.
The SNP has complained that the money has not been subject to the Barnett formula used to set devolved spending, and it it had, it could have meant an extra £2.9bn for Scotland.
However the UK government, as well as Scotland’s leading economic think tank, the Fraser of Allander Institute, say the formula only gives Scotland extra if public spending in England goes up, and the £1bn extra for Northern Ireland under the Tory-DUP is quite separate.
But Mr Neil said the Tory-DUP deal had “done us out of £2.9bn” and the UK had breached the terms of the cross-border “fiscal framework” governing Holyrood tax and spending.
“If we won that legal case I think it would force Theresa May out. What a tremendous blow for freedom that would be. It would show how rotten the Union is under the Tories.”
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