Farmer adds his voice to calls for Scots independence

Published on Thursday 4 April 2002 01:00

EDINBURGH tycoon Sir Tom Farmer today joined the call for Scottish independence.

In an interview today Sir Tom called for Holyrood to break away from Westminster.

The former owner of motor repair giant Kwik Fit, Sir Tom claimed the UK was holding back Scotland.

He said: "We want to be 100 per cent in control of our own business. We don’t want to be answerable to Westminster anymore," said Sir Tom.

The multi-millionaire owner of Hibernian Football Club added devolution in 1999 had not fixed Scotland’s economic and social problems.

"There are many people in Scotland in the business world like me who’ve been sitting back saying we’ll see how things happen.

"I think maybe we’re just getting to the stage where enough is enough." Sir Tom joins Sir Sean Connery as the only other high-profile individual to call for independence.

He said: "We now have this thing called a devolved parliament, but we still have a Scottish Secretary sitting in Westminster. "Why? What does that achieve. What do they do?"

"We go along and we say we want to do this, and Westminster says ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that’."

He believed many voters thought they were casting a vote for independence in the 1999 parliament referendum.

"I think most people thought devolution meant independence.

"We now have a devolved parliament. And do you know what it’s become?

"It’s become neither one thing or t’other. And that’s the danger of it."

Sir Tom, 61, amassed his fortune, worth more than 100 million, as owner of Kwik-Fit , selling it to Ford in 1999 for 1.2m

Sir Tom also slammed the spiralling costs of the new Scottish Parliament. He said: "It started off at 40 million four years ago, now it’s approaching 300 million. It’s unbelievable that should be allowed to happen."