Boris Johnson is love-bombing Scots on Valentine’s Day with a pledge to boost trade and business by creating two “green freeports” north of the border.
The prime minister is visiting Scotland on day one of a “levelling-up” tour of the UK which will also take him to England’s North West and North East regions this week.
Freeports are tax-free zones around docks, airports or railway hubs designed to boost economic growth by exempting goods arriving in them from tax and customs charges.
They are a key part of the government’s levelling-up agenda, which Mr Johnson is promoting during his tour this week.
Another freeport in Wales is expected to be announced shortly. The Valentine’s Day announcement of two freeports in Scotland next year follows months of wrangling between the UK government and Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP-led administration in Edinburgh.
Differences have now been resolved, however, and Westminster says a landmark deal has been agreed for two in Scotland, which follow eight in England already promised by the government.
But the PM’s love-bombing has already been given the cold shoulder by the SNP’s government partners the Scottish Green Party, in the first major split between the two parties since they signed a power-sharing deal last year.
The Scottish Greens’ finance spokesman, Ross Greer MSP, has condemned the proposals and declared: “The Greens will have nothing to do with this corporate giveaway. A little greenwashing won’t change the grim reality of these freeports.
“They are yet another way of handing tax breaks and public money to rich corporations, despite no evidence that it will create real economic prosperity.”
Despite the Greens’ protest, there will now be a bidding war north of the border, with…
Source : skynews
