Finance Secretary John Swinney has congratulated Cupar for “blazing a trail” in the Scottish independence debate.
Mr Swinney made the comment as he joined Conservative Mid Scotland and Fife MSP Murdo Fraser in the Fife town on Friday to debate the business and economic arguments for and against independence.
The courteous and reasoned debate, held at Elmwood College before a packed audience of local business people, was hosted by Cupar Business Network on behalf of the Yes Scotland and Better Together campaigns.
The informative 90-minute event, which covered wide-ranging business topics from currency to EU membership and the impact of the “bedroom tax” on social housing landlords, was moderated by the chairman of Cupar Business Club Peter Southcott.
Outlining the case for independence, Mr Swinney said: “I believe in Scottish independence for a very simple reason. I believe that the people that are best equipped to decide and take all of the decisions that relate to the future of our country, to our interests, to our prospects, to our aspirations are the people who choose to live and to work in Scotland.
“I believed that before we had a Scottish Parliament. But I believe it even more emphatically since we’ve had a Scottish Parliament because what I’ve seen the Parliament do in the years since 1999 is take a set of decisions that have been about the interests of the people of Scotland.”
Outlining the case for staying as part of the UK, Mr Fraser warned that voting for constitutional change would be an “irreversible decision”.
He said: “The question about the referendum isn’t about whether Scotland could be independent. It is whether Scotland should be an independent country. That’s what we need to decide.
“Whether leaving the UK and becoming a separate country would be better or worse for Scotland. And not just for us, but for all the generations that follow us. It’s a decision for potentially hundreds of years.
“I passionately believe that the best choice for our future is to remain a strong and proud nation while benefiting from the security and opportunity as part of a greater United Kingdom.
“We can bring out the best of Scotland by working together across the UK. We’ve achieved an awful lot by working together and in the future we can achieve a lot more.”