It is not unusual to hear dark warnings of what might happen if Scotland votes for independence. Big Business is flighty. It is rather more unusual to hear leading business figures suggest they might leave Scotland if the country does not vote for independence. But that’s what Jim McColl, the chief executive of Clyde Blowers Capital, has done.
Scotland, he suggests, is held back by the fact that UK economic policy is dictated by the needs of the City of London and the south-east of England. I fancy there are plenty of folk in the north of England, Wales and Northern Ireland who might agree with that diagnosis.
Independence is actually, I think, McColl’s second-choice preference. But in the absence of a middle-way option – that is, fiscal autonomy or Real Home Rule – he prefers independence to the status quo.
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