Will large corporations now boycott Scotland?
When Diageo announced the closure of a bottling plant in Kilmarnock with a loss of 900 jobs this attracted significant fury from politicians and unions across the country. Despite Diageo apparently holding numerous discussions with the leading SNP party in Scotland the proposed closure, and subsequent job losses, do not appear to have been addressed at the time. However the ongoing fury against Diageo, which has seen the company's corporate expenditure come under more and more focus, may well be doing a disservice to Scotland in the future.
Whether the politicians and unions like it or not, Diageo has been a firm part of the Scottish economy from many years, supplied employment opportunities to hundreds of thousands of people and ultimately help to fund the cost of living in Scotland. Whether or not the company is justified in closing the Kilmarnock plant is open to debate but the main issue here is the future of Scotland as a base for large corporate companies.
If you were a corporate company looking to relocate your operations to the UK, would you choose Scotland bearing in mind the potential backlash you may encounter if you ever chose to reorganise your assets in the future?
The SNP needs to be very careful about its nationalistic approach to the whiskey and drinks industry as a whole because ultimately this could backfire and reduce the number of employment opportunities in Scotland in the future.
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