A pro-independence business group has described the position of Confederation of British Industry (CBI) director general John Cridland as untenable after the row over its registration with the elections watchdog as a No supporter in the independence debate.
Business for Scotland said it feared the director of the organisation north of the Border, Iain McMillan, had been made a scapegoat after his retirement was announced at the weekend.
It follows the row which saw 18 organisations, including the BBC, VisitScotland and Scottish Enterprise, either quit or suspend their memberships.
A Business for Scotland spokesman said: "It does beg some questions about the main driver behind the CBI's response to the Scottish Government's White Paper. That was headed up by the director general, John Cridland, who was responsible for the composition and media promotion of what was clearly a highly politicised act of No-campaigning.
"Mr McMillan's retirement as director in Scotland may suggest to some people an element of scapegoating to distract from the central CBI figure, director general John Cridland. His position now looks untenable.".
The CBI said a timetable for Mr McMillan's departure was agreed in January, before it came under fire for its registration for its stance. It has approached the Electoral Commission to have the registration withdrawn, with Mr Cridland saying it had made an "honest mistake".
Mr Cridland said registering had "triggered something none of us expected". It is reviewing the situation and taking legal advice.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article