Although the time between the polls opening and the final result being declared was only a little more than 25 hours, the real story of how the Scottish independence referendum was won and lost has a deep history of two years or more. For many it has been a process that has gone on for far too long, and there are calls from people across the country to move on and abandon the fierce politicking that has gripped the nation especially tightly during the last few months. For me it’s a strange time, with the excitement and anticipation of the vote gone and only the analysis of what went right and wrong left to pore over.
Picking the point where this independence campaign is tough. You could argue that either of the SNP’s two Scottish election victories in 2007 or 2011 marked the start of the debate, but the real beginning of the campaigns was the signing of the Edinburgh Agreement in October 2012 – signalling the UK Government’s acceptance that there will be a referendum and that the result will be binding. That was when it was settled that Scotland would have a choice and that’s where the debate over Scotland’s future really began. Rather than having three options (independence, devo-max and the status quo) or perhaps two questions (Should more powers be devolved to the Scottish Parliament? & Should Scotland be an independent country?), the Westminster government insisted on a simple Yes or No question to accept or reject Scottish independence. At the time, opinion polls suggested that the devo-max option, normally considered to transfer almost all power other than defence and foreign affairs to Edinburgh, was the preferred one. Westminster’s theory behind the Yes/No proposal was that given the choice between the risk of independence and the status quo that No would win comfortably and little would need to be done to appease Scotland.
At that point it was almost inconceivable that Yes would win. An average of the most recent polls from different organisations saw support for independence at 31% and for No at 53% (with 16% undecided, interestingly enough a figure that changed very little until early August). There was a tremendous mountain for Yes to climb to get close to winning. We know now though that despite the daunting prospect it faced, support for independence has soared over the last two years and came close to being realised.
Yes Scotland has become the largest grassroots political campaign in our nation’s history. It had a clear and positive vision for Scotland, concentrating on how taking matters into our own hands would give Scotland the opportunity to really make a difference.
Better Together was an all-round shambles. They had by far the easier job of simply maintaining the support that existed for the union. They only had to convince the people of Scotland that what they had was good and that things would get better as part of the United Kingdom. However, the story of Better Together’s campaign is one of scaremongering and negative campaigning that focussed far too much on the negatives of Scotland now and Scotland future. It’s clear from the shift in the polls that Better Together held on by the skin of their teeth to hold out from what would have been a monumental defeat.
There are four main areas where I think the Yes campaign was particularly strong and although they did not win the referendum there can be no doubt that they won the battle of the campaigns.
Firstly, Yes Scotland’s marketing was far superior. From its’ launch, the visual aesthetic and ideology of the Yes campaign was clear, bright and positive. It focussed on how Scotland could be a better place and how independence would give us a chance to right the wrongs of our society. Its message and vision for Scotland did not waver from the start to the end. It’s true it did its’ utmost to capitalise on slips from the opposition, particularly where the NHS was concerned in the final weeks of the debate, but for the most part it stayed clear of disparaging rivals and went for the moral high ground.
Better Together were not a coherent force throughout the campaign. With around six months to go before the debate, approximately three quarters of the way into the campaign, they decided to rebrand to being “No thanks”, in an attempt to seem more positive. Blair MacDougall, campaign director for Better Together, may have been more vocal and more visible than counterpart Blair Jenkins, but towards the end of the debate his focus was on singling out the vanishing minority of Yes supporters who had taken to deface No Thanks stickers or egg Jim Murphy. The final example of Better Together’s marketing ineptitude was their frankly awful broadcast “The Woman Who Made Up Her Mind”, which while attempting to steady their flagging support amongst women actually served to demean them and drive them over to the Yes side. Instead of broadcasting their vision for why Scotland was better as part of the UK they focussed far too heavily on dismissing the idea that independence was plausible, and although they won the referendum in the end largely based on an argument that falls under that category, they could have won by more if they had taken a more positive line. The saving grace for Better Together in the last few days of the campaign was Gordon Brown’s speech urging Scots to stay in the UK, which had more passion and more pathos than any previous No campaign effort and may well have won over the votes of several hundred undecided voters.
The two big debates between First Minister Alex Salmond and Better Together chairman Alistair Darling where perhaps what triggered the general widespread interest in the campaign in the final six weeks. Darling won the first debate, although only narrowly so and generally because Salmond appeared slightly weaker than usual and didn’t give a satisfactory answer on the currency question. This resulted in a slight pause in the momentum towards Yes and set the tone for the debate for the rest of August. However, Salmond undoubtedly won the second debate by being far more passionate about the causes for independence than his counterpart could about the Union and by answering the currency question much better than he had before, leaving Darling with no more ammunition. This really kicked the Yes campaign into high gear and set in motion the massive boost in the polls that briefly saw it dead level or even slightly ahead of Better Together. I wonder if Salmond had won the first debate would the same pronounced swing to Yes have happened earlier and support among these new voters would have become more deep-rooted so that the Westminster barrage would have had little effect and Scotland would have said Yes.
Social media has become a growing force in politics in the last ten years around the world. Barack Obama’s election in 2008 showed social media’s value in political campaigning as he captured the youth vote to take him to victory. The Arab Spring in 2011 may not have been caused by social media, but networks such as Facebook and Twitter certainly helped facilitated the demonstrations that led to massive political change. In the UK, we’ve been almost immune to social media’s political involvement but the referendum has seen that change. With 16 and 17 year olds being allowed to vote in this election for the first time ever, social media became a battleground where ideas could be spread away from the mainstream media and where ordinary citizens could discuss and debate the issues rather than just politicians. There have been thousands of blogs written (not just by me) that have discussed and developed ideas on the referendum that have influenced the way people have voted. It’s been a triumph for democracy. The facts are though that it appears that the Yes campaign won the battle of social media in this campaign. Yes Scotland has 348,602 likes on Facebook while Better Together has 224,450. Yes Scotland has 116,000 followers on Twitter while Better Together has 42,600. The hashtags #YesScotland, #YesBecause and #VoteYesScotland all trended UK-wide in the run-up to the vote, with no competing Better Together trend. These facts show the massive effort that Yes voters went through to engage with each other and other people about their cause, something that wasn’t as present with the No campaign.
Social media was just on part of the large informal campaign in the referendum that played a bigger part than ever. The views and opinions of politicians may have become stale and repetitive by the final months of the campaigns, but public discussion between families and friends still continued apace. Scotland was alive with debate before the referendum. You could hardly go a conversation with many people without the vote cropping up. More than any election in UK history, the opinions of the people mattered more than those at the top of the campaigns, and I think that’s something that this debate can be remembered for. People on both sides of the argument managed to convince others to agree with their vote, and it would appear that Better Together did this more effectively judging by the final vote. However, it’s clear to see that Yes Scotland’s attempts at non-traditional political campaigning were far more visible and effective in getting the message across. Yes rallies in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Inverness etc. all attracted large numbers and were vibrant expressions of the will of many Scots to become independent. That wasn’t really there for the other side. Yes stickers are abundant here in Aberdeen and signs supporting the campaign were draped across thousands of lampposts and in windows across the Highlands. The Yes campaign felt inescapable at times, but Better Together/No Thanks was.
It’s hard to say where the campaign was won and lost, but I can pinpoint two specific issues and events that will dominate our view of the debate in hindsight that I feel combined to produce a No vote.
Yes Scotland ran a fantastic campaign, but the final chink in their armour was the question of which currency an independent Scotland would use. Despite actually publishing a range of options sanctioned by esteemed economists, including Bill Clinton’s former economic advisor Joseph Stiglitz, the Yes campaign insisted on sticking firm with the line that they’d campaign to keep the pound after independence, despite Westminster parties agreeing that it could not happen. Scots believed it was a bluff. When George Osborne made his famous “Sermon on the Pound” speech in February the Yes campaign actually received one of their largest boosts in the polls up to that point, going up by 3 or 4 points. Scots believed then and right up to referendum day according to polls, that the Westminster line was a bluff. But I think the uncertainty about currency was the fatal flaw in the Yes campaign. This came to be at the heart of the economic argument about independence and Better Together rightfully criticised the Yes campaign for not offering a “Plan B”. The first debate between Salmond and Darling was lost almost entirely because Salmond did not reiterate the other options for currency in an independent Scotland, despite the fact they were there. Salmond quelled fears slightly by mentioning the other currency choices in the second debate and went on to win comfortably, but the seeds of doubts in voters’ mind about currency were already planted and they were allowed to grow.
Of course, these doubts about currency fed into a broader economic critique of independence of which we felt the full force in the final week of campaigning. As a poll suggested that Yes Scotland took the lead for the first time, Westminster flew into full panic mode and began to intervene in the referendum debate in a far, far stronger way than it had done before. David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband all downed tools at Westminster and forewent Prime Minister’s Questions to campaign in Scotland. 100 MPs were conscripted to join the effort as well. Ed Miliband called for the saltire to be raised across the UK to show solidarity with Scotland, a gesture that resulted in the flag being dropped from the Downing Street flagpole in a cruel twist of irony. These gestures were dubbed “too little, too late” by Yes supporters, wondering where the interest had been in the fate of Scotland up until now. The issue rarely gained any publicity in England or in Parliament until the final few weeks when the polls showed that Scotland could indeed vote to go it alone. Perhaps surprisingly, I sympathise with the Conservatives’ hesitance to get involved in the debate as it felt as though they couldn’t win either way. By intervening they appear as the out-of-touch Englanders that we didn’t elected meddling in our affairs, driving the Yes vote higher, and by staying away it appears that they don’t care and that also plays into the hands of those wanting independence.
However genuine the impassioned cries to “stay with us” were in the last week of the referendum campaign were I’m not sure, but I can’t doubt the effort they went through to create a maelstrom of scare stories to make Scots cower in fear of the prospect of independence at the same time they were asking us to stay within the Union. Supermarkets were called in to Downing Street and asked to announce that prices would be higher in an independent Scotland. Banks were told to announce that they would move their headquarters to England in the wake of a Yes vote. The traditional media was reported these scares across the UK and did their part to create an atmosphere of doubt and fear around independence. Social media did its’ best to counter-act this, trying to show that these scares were from those businesses more afraid of the effort of change than the result of it, but couldn’t stand firm. Polls began to stagnate from then until the referendum and the rise in the polls for Yes was halted.
Heading into polling day, the result was too close to call but No did hold a narrow four point lead in the polls issued in the days immediately before the referendum. With a record electorate of 97% of the voting age population, the pollsters were not sure if their predictions were accurate. Two competing theories emerged over in which direction the new surge of political support would flow. Yes supporters envisaged the “missing million”, a massive part of the population that had previously been uninterested in participating in elections that had been invigorated by the prospect of change and would vote to support independence. Better Together suggested that the silent majority would carry the day, and that despite the Yes campaign’s massive presence in terms of social media, public demonstrations and canvassing, those who were quietly happy with the Union would make their voices heard where it counts at the ballot box. There was also still a minority of the population going into the final days, and even the polling booth, undecided over which was the better option for them and for Scotland.
In the end, though, the silent majority turned up and cast their vote for No. The Yes campaign had done a remarkable job in convincing people that independence was the way forward but its rise in the polls was stalled with the Westminster blitz in the final week before it could really take hold.
It took an incredible effort for the Yes campaign to get so close to winning, and the fact that 45% of the Scottish population believed in independence is nothing short of staggering given where the issue stood just two years ago. The Yes campaign was organised from the ground up, and the smaller factions of the campaign such as the National Collective, Women for Independence and Wings Over Scotland will not be going anywhere anytime soon. These looser, more informal networks are there ready to be reawakened if the public or political opinion in Scotland begins to shift towards independence again.
Politics and life in general in Scotland has changed forever as a result of the referendum campaign and the vote on Thursday. We are a newly re-engaged and active political community ready to voice our opinions. We are a beacon of democracy, with 84.5% of the electorate standing up to be counted and almost two years of mostly peaceful and reasonable debate. The Yes campaign will be seen as a template for independence movements worldwide, and even for the power of grassroots politics in the twenty-first century among large scale campaigns here and abroad. It managed to muster a 15% swing on as fundamental a topic as independence in little over a year and was undoubtedly a positive force for Scotland. Better Together will be cited as a campaign that hobbled over the finish line, winning by a margin that doesn’t reflect how close it came to losing what was thought to be an unlosable referendum.
As disappointed as Yes campaigners feel about not winning the referendum, they can take great pride and achievement in coming so close. Often the result is the only thing that is remembered in history, but with the independence referendum – I think that the three and a half million people that took part will let you know that there was far more to the story than just the final score.