Call for Tunnock's boycott meets plenty of resistance

Members Sean Clerkin, Gwen Sinclair and James Scott protested outside the village bakery following reports Tunnock’s planned to remove the lion rampant from boxes of teacakes being sold in England and an advert proclaiming “The Great British Teacake” appeared on the London Underground.

Chief executive Boyd Tunnock had previously stated the firm had no plans to remove the lion rampant from the box.

He said: “We still have the lion rampant on the box. The advert we put in London was a sort of spoof of the British bake off.

“Maybe like Scotch Whisky, if you just called it whisky, then it could come from any place in the world.”

That didn’t stop the protest from going ahead, although it may just have been an excuse by the nationalist group to attack Mr Tunnock for supporting the Better Together campaign during the 2014 referendum than anything to do with boxes of teacakes.

Mr Scott said: “Tunnock’s used to a be a Scottish company with the lion rampant logo,

“The lion rampant was brought in by King William the Lion on Christmas Eve 1165 and for Tunnock’s to do away with it is disgusting.

“During the referendum, the most unfair referendum in human history, companies like Tunnock’s spoke out against an independent Scotland, normally businesses remain neutral in such matters.

“Boyd Tunnock is proposing nothing short of cultural vandalism and we do not want the Scottish identity of the company to be diminished.”

Mr Clerkin added: “We want Tunnock’s to be a Scottish company and until such times as they admit they are again then we are calling for a boycott.

“We don’t want Tories ruling Scotland, we are campaigning for an independent, socialist Scotland free of austerity, free of the cuts - it’s not the Great British Teacake, it’s the Great Scottish Teacake!”

Mr Clerkin became somewhat infamous last year for heckling former Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy and comedian Eddie Izzard during the General Election campaign, and in Uddingston got a taste of his own medicine,

A large group gathered to heckle the protestors and one elderly lady even went as far as to try and knock a sign out of Mr Clerkin’s hands with her crutch.

They were told in no uncertain terms local jobs were far more important and were roundly booed when they called for a boycott.

Even attempts to hand out rival Lee’s tecakes were met with derision as the firm has nothing overtly Scottish on its packaging.