This is a living post where I am documenting what I think we did well and what we did wrong or not so well. With comments and feedback I will keep amending this list. It is merely a view and I will develop this in my super-strategy.
WHAT WE DID WELL
1. I am a numbers guy and I thought it was futile to go around knocking on doors and speaking with people. Very quickly I changed my view and found this to be a vital part of the campaign. In fact, where we were able to influence or change peoples views, like reformed smokers they would hope to multiply this success by their telling family, friends and neighbours. The Grassroots Campaign under YES Scotland got this completely right.
2. Alex Salmond, for some reason seems to be a bit ‘Marmite’. I do not understand why but clearly this is the impression I got and lots of our campaigners also got. I am not SNP but I have always admired Alex Salmond and don’t find him over-bearing, smug or over-confident. He is a strong, resolute and determined Scot. However, he must have realised his Marmite appeal and adopted a toned down persona. There is no doubt that worked well for some people. I put this toned down approach in both the good and the bad camp and accept we will never know the right answer.
3. Throughout to campaign the main thrust of the campaign stayed on track and did not change directions or lack consistency as was the case with Better Together who changed tack if the day ended in a ‘Y’.
4. The sheer diversity and calibre of the key spokes people who presented and debated in the campaign was extraordinary.
5. The breadth and depth and total engagement of the YES campaign was world class. The decision to open up shops and offices was a stroke of genius and worked extremely well.
That’s all the good news. Now for the not so good and the bad news.
WHAT WE DID NOT DO WELL
1. Clearly the YES Campaign had a strategy, SNP, Greens, SSP and other political parties for YES had their respective strategies. Each personality that supported the campaign and wrote or took part in debates had their own strategy. The massive blog sites and the smaller sites had their respective strategies. Other organisations and businesses that were in favour of YES had their respective strategies. Individuals who tweeted or wrote on Facebook had their personal strategies. The one thing they all had in common was the absence of a coherent single strategy. Of course every single one endeavoured to align themselves with the Campaign but in truth, other then the single and obvious aim, there was nothing to align to, no position marker, no single truth.
2. When I was out canvassing or in meetings or discussion group for every question asked there was a different answer given but anyone giving an answer. Very often there was truth in most of the answers but there was never a totally consistent and concise answer. Everyone had their own version of the answer and some even had incorrect answers. When this occurs, the people we are trying to convince don’t know who to believe and end up believing nobody.
3. Everybody on the YES side of the referendum recognises the credit that is due to the SNP in securing our first Independence Referendum. From the outset the referendum was portrayed especially by the media and the opposition or Better Together as an SNP initiative. This meant that Better Together were able to launch an attack on the SNP and their policies and score direct hits on the YES Campaign before YES Scotland had raised their profile accordingly. The SNP should have come out immediately or as soon as possible and positioned themselves as a part of a much bigger campaign that was headed up by YES Scotland, led by Blair Jenkins and involved people and organisations of all denominations across the length and breadth of Scotland.
4. Because the campaign was allowed to become SNP centric the opposition, BT with all its warts, focused on the White Paper. The White Paper was not a Party Manifesto or a pledge or a vow, it was a vision founded on 4 years of the Big Conversation. The referendum was dragged into an ‘election style’ campaign and the White Paper was used as the evidence. The SNP should have come out immediately and as loudly as possible and make it clear that this was a vision for Scotland that would form part of the negotiation that would ultimately be put before the people of iScotland in the 2016 election. This was a huge mistake. Positioning the Scottish general election after the initial negotiation stage following a YES vote was a huge mistake. The SNP Government should have committed to dissolve the Government immediately after a YES vote and form an all party coalition Government to engage in the negotiations and take decisions on the key issues such as currency, the EU, Trident etc to the people of Scotland – possible in a further referendum.
5. Fundamentally, the campaign was reactive. YES presented the calm, reasoned, fair, inclusive approach to the referendum based on a vision. BT offered no vision whatsoever, little in the way of face to face engagement, fear and smear followed by threats, lies and bullying. This reasonable approach may have cut it with some, we will never know, but we did go into a gunfight with a knife, no! probably a spoon. There was a clue. When Alex Salmond played fair with Alistair Darling in the first debate the round went to Darling. At the rematch when Alex Salmond gave Darling a very public and workmanlike kickin’ Alex Salmond was declared the outright winner. The campaign took a leap forward. This was what the public wanted. Turning the other cheek worked for Jesus because his dad was pretty powerful – the rest of us have to take the fight to them, but bigger, faster and more determined.
6. Reacting can be a strategy if handled properly. Many spots are won by defensive play – because they have a killer aim and catch the opposition of guard or wear them out. Wee Scotland against the might of Westminster and The Establishment were never going to win that battle. Unless we had a winning strategy and I have tried to present that in my ‘strategy and beyond’ blog. Just to give some examples; the biggest single issue that won over voters (if indeed we lost??) was currency. That is pathetic. With a little bit of logic, on the doorsteps I did not fail to win over every single person, even accountants, with the counter argument – that I prefer to call the truth. Yet a heard lame arguments from our side trying to defend the ‘can’t use the pound’ argument. Honestly, that was as pathetic as it was infuriating. Telling us we could not keep the currency union was like telling me I could not keep my Ferrari. I don’t have a Ferrari …. and we don’t have a currency union. I did not hear a single public denouncement of this, but I blogged it and blogged it and blogged it and kept blogging it up to the 18th. Guys, we don’t have a currency union. Consider the EU and the suggestion that we could be thrown out and forced to the back of the queue to get back in. First of all, why would we want to break away from Westminster and hand over our sovereignty to Brussels – actually, they already have it anyway. Just supposing there was an In/Out referendum on the EU around 2017 and the UK voted to leave, how long would it be before we were actually out? Article 51 of the EU Treaty takes the exit strategy out of the hands of the UK and kicks it into the long grass, then the bunker, then the burn then we discover that the ball was lost anyway. As we are at present, even with an Out vote most of us will never see the UK outside the EU in our lifetime. And just to put the cherry on it, could anyone with even half a brain imagine the EU dismissing Scotland with Trident, their primary nuclear defense. Even if, at at some stage, the people of Scotland voted, yes voted to remove Trident that would not happen for a very long time. The whole EU debate was a complete hoax.
7. I know there is some evidence of vote rigging and electoral fraud. I initially saw this as a distraction and perhaps seen as sour grapes. Maybe there was, and there is some evidence. Maybe there wasn’t or at least not sufficient to influence the outcome. That was not the problem. The problem was being so naive as to dismiss this as a possibility and put robust measures in place to deal with this. We should have requested UN observers – after all, this was a country’s future and meant a huge amount to the UK – in fact this was the biggest threat to the UK since 1939. From my perspective I witnessed and reacted to some lesser but nonetheless serious issues on poling day as a Polling Agent at Churchill that is a strong naval area. The Returning Officer secured the ballot boxes with tie wraps when she knew she had security tags and knew the procedure. She allowed BT to drape a large union jack at the entrance and failed to react. She criticised me because my rosette was slightly showing although covered up inside the station but allowed a senior BT person to prance about the station with a rosette in full display for about 15 minutes. She allowed a Polling Clark to promote a NO vote as he was signing people in. Of course I registered a formal complaint and she was sanctioned but she should have been thrown out along with her colleague.
8. We made a specific catastrophic error; we believed our own hype and opinion polls – unless of course there was fraud on an industrial scale. We were told the Shetland Isles, for example were 80% YES when they were overwhelmingly NO. This was a trend across the whole campaign.
9. I believe there was a crisis of confidence on the part of Alex Salmond. Alex seems to have a reputation as a bit smug, a bit tough perhaps a bit ‘in your face’. I can understand why he might want to tone that down when looking for votes. He may have been right and this could have been a positive sum gain; but I am not so sure. I like the fact that Alex Salmond is self assured and confident. I like the fact that he ca stick it to the opposition and I like the fact that the opposition, especially the Party Leaders are sh*t scared to face up to him in public. Instead they send a ‘lacky’ from the opposition, a failed and discredited politician with nothing to lose. They even gave Darling a mission; taunt Alex in public to see if he snaps and reveals his darker side. I for one felt disappointed that he did not demolish Darling the first time out. But was patience and our patience was more than rewarded when he sliced and diced him on the second outing. A word to the wise; you don’t lead a country by being a pussy. You don’t win a referendum like a sad episode of ‘X’ factor. You win by being bigger, better and more resolute than the opposition. All those Scots that wanted a pussy for a leader must shoulder the blame for helping to dilute their leader – that could only have happened from the inside. Alex Salmond showed Scotland, the UK and the watching world that he could demolish any of the Establishment figures at will. If Scotland had got behind him we would be an independent country NOW.
10. I have saved the best for last because I believe this was one of our biggest failures. I have always believed and even more so now that elections and referendums will be won or lost on social media. It funded and put Obama in the White House. Social media especially blogs, Twitter and Facebook were white hot in the latter stages of the campaign. But there was one fundamental thing missing. In fact it is a concept that is so new that it is not really considered; a Social Media Strategy. There was none. I don’t think we could have asked for or even expected the quantity, quality and passion on social media from the YES supporters. But we were agreeing with each, observing the same things, reacting to the same issues and generally inward looking. This is probably not a fair criticism but I believe it to be true. I don’t know all the answers, I have some thoughts and suggestions but there will be many loyal YESrs with phenomenal social media skills who can collaborate to develop a meaningful Social Media Strategy framework that enables us in the Final Push to independence to exploit the power of social media and overcome some of the limitations.
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