As of today more than 3000 business owners have now signed the Business for Scotland declaration, convinced that independence will deliver the business opportunity of a lifetime. That number has increased by 500 in the last month alone.
Successful business owners such as John McGlynn, founder of Airlink, Doug Duguid, CEO of Enermech, and Aberdeen businessmen Mike Wilson of Epic Group and Allan Porter of the Searoute Group, all joined the organisation in the last week, despite the best efforts of Westminster politicians rolling out orchestrated threats from banks and supermarket giants, and making unconstitutional promises to broker last minute deals.
Mike Wilson, MD and owner of leisure company the Epic Group (which owns The Priory, Prohibition, The Monkey House and the Pearl Lounge in Aberdeen) said:
“Billions in tax revenues have been generated out of the North Sea and this has made some people rich, but hasn’t really filtered down to ordinary Scottish people – we are a wealthy nation, but not a wealthy society.
“Look at HS2, it’s going to cost Scotland billions but will actually harm Aberdeen. We need to be in control of our own infrastructure and investment in Scotland’s future. Our future in our hands.”
Allan Porter is MD and owner of the Searoute Group, an international shipping and port services company, predominantly servicing the oil and gas/heavy engineering sector in Glasgow and Aberdeen. He said:
“Our shipping industry has been decimated, but the potential for the future – in an independent Scotland – is exciting. We need the tools to be able to create the specialist shipping and shipbuilding skills to excel in this sector.”
The Business for Scotland website, which has hundreds of articles and videos, has just broken through the 1 million visitor milestone – almost one in four of Scots voting on Thursday is likely to have visited the site for information on Scotland’s economy and the business benefits of independence.
The most recent video – debunking the independence scare stories – has been viewed more than 35,000 times. The Vision for Scotland document, published last month, sets out an ambitious economic plan for the country.
Hundreds of public events have been held across the country, the Business for Scotland battle bus toured all the main cities, and members have distributed more than 300,000 leaflets, with adverts in five leading newspapers reaching an even wider audience.
Business for Scotland chief executive Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp said:
“We have spent the last two years making the economic case for independence and ensuring that as many business owners as possible have all the information they need to make an informed decision on Thursday.
“It’s clear that when business owners see the facts and understand the figures, the economic argument has been won by the Yes Campaign. The No campaign is based on nothing but fear, we have a vision and a plan to build a better nation.
Notes:
Many more people have signed our declaration, but we don’t add business people to our published total unless we have spoken to them; the 3000 number is our verified membership. Our mailing list is significantly larger, reaching tens of thousands of businesses across Scotland.
Link to debunking scare stories video
Link to Vision for Scotland document
Darling’s HS2 blunder to cost Aberdeen and Dundee £316m a year
As a retired service engineer from the oil industry and haven work in it for 38 years also been in business and lost it due to by Tory decisions made in webminster by taxing the oil company’s to a point that they stopped expolatration drilling in the North Sea in the nineties and this caused the end of the company that I was a partner in, I thank your all for the support you are given to Scotland and could not agree with you more.
Also I have worked around this world in just about every country were there is oil and to see all the industry that has come from Scotland is mind blowing, just look at all the company’s from the USA that have bought Scotish company’s in the oil industry because of the changes we have made to it for the better and will continue to do so.
That is a fantastic achievement and a lot of hard work on all your part. I always point folk here because in you we can trust, no one risks their businesses unless Indy was the right path.