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Top International businessman
stands up for Scottish Independence

Sutherland-born Mr MacLeod immediately celebrated his new status by rebuffing Tory government claims that businesses would flee if there was a devolved Scottish parliament or full independence for Scotland. And he dismissed warnings by Scottish Secretary Michael Forsyth that a loosening of the ties between Scotland and England would cost the Scottish people more in taxes - a Tartan Tax as Mr Forsyth has called it. But Mr MacLeod describes the Tartan Tax notion as, "Pure nonsense - a lovely catch phrase, a political gimmick, but nothing more."

Mr MacLeod (56), who lives at Scatwell House, Strathconon, returned home to his Highland roots in October 1995, 30 years to the day he left Scotland to make his fortune. He is chairman of the 100 million Canadian-based Caledonia Mining Corporation and several other lesser mining concerns in 12 countries throughout the world.

The former Golspie High School pupil, who trained as an industrial chemist at the Dounreay nuclear plant, is convinced that only independence, not a devolved parliament, is the way forward for Scotland. "The last thing we need is another parliament," he said. "Devolution makes me smile. If we get devolution, then we must get rid of one parliament. I think the only thing that matters now is independence, because I think it is the only thing that will solve our problems."

Mr MacLeod described the Scottish people as pragmatic, entrepreneurial and compassionate. The Tory party appealed to those with the entrepreneurial streak and Labour to those with compassion for the less fortunate, but the SNP was the only party that appealed to the whole political spectrum.

Margaret Paterson, who is fighting for the Parliamentary seat of Ross, Skye and Inverness West at the next General Election, presented Mr MacLeod with his membership card.

She said, ''We are delighted to welcome someone of Dennis MacLeod's ability and credibility into the party - especially when Michael Forsyth repeatedly claims that independence would drive businesses out of Scotland.

"Here's a top international businessman who's come home to Scotland to fight for its independence."

Gold fever hit Dennis MacLeod over 40 years ago, when as a boy he started panning for the metal in a small stream near his Sutherland home. In fact it was from this same stream that a kinsman of his, Robert Gilchrist, found gold and started Britain's only gold rush in 1869. Mr MacLeod left Scotland in 1965 to work in Zambia and spent five years there and 10 in South Africa, where he started his fortune by inventing a process for extracting gold from waste mining heaps around Johannesburg. He then moved to Canada, the world's main mining country, where he lived for 15 years.

The MacLeod empire includes a gold mine in Spain, producing 50,000 oz a year, two gold mines in Africa, which will each eventually produce 50,000 oz a year, and six marble quarries in Hungary.

The central and northern Highlands hold "wonderful" opportunities for gold and other mineral production, says Mr MacLeod, and he's already surveyed his native Kildonan, and Cononish, near Tyndrum, Argyllshire, on land owned by the Duke of Argyll.

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