EuroMillions couple dominates Scottish Yes donations
New figures show lottery winners Chris and Colin Weir have given £2.5m to the campaign for Scottish independence over the last year.
The couple, from North Ayrshire, have each donated £1.25m to the SNP’s Yes campaign since 1 April last year, after giving £1m the previous year.
The Weirs won the £161m jackpot in 2011 and have made large donations to several causes and set up a charitable trust to help community trusts and small charities in Scotland.
Yes Scotland says it has received more than £3m in donations in the pasy year, with £2.7m coming from seven individual supporters.
The campaign’s chief executive Blair Jenkins said: “We greatly appreciate and are hugely encouraged by the thousands of people across Scotland who have made donations – both large and small – according to their financial means.”
Earlier this month the Weirs defended their decision to donate to the Yes campaign in an open letter published in Scottish newspapers.
The couple wrote: “We appreciate that not everyone shares our political view. That surely is the point of democracy.
“And, in a democracy, we each have the right to support political campaigns of our choosing and to contribute financially, provided we do so in line with the rules.
“As lifelong supporters of independence, it would be strange if we did not support the Yes Scotland campaign. So that is what we have done, nothing more and nothing less.”
It was reported earlier this year that the Weirs had spent £3.5m on a stately home in Troon, South Ayrshire.
Nationalists ‘dependent on one donor’
Better Together campaign director Blair McDougall said: “No one would criticise the Weirs, who are long-standing SNP supporters.
“It is extraordinary that compared to the tens of thousands of small donations received by Better Together from our supporters, almost 80 per cent of Yes Scotland’s money comes from one source.
“We now know why they have been hiding their donations for so long.
“Whilst Better Together relies on the support of a broad mixture of large donors and thousands of ordinary people giving what they can, it is clear that the nationalists are almost completely dependent on one source of income.”