Last campaign ‘was fraudulent’
THE man who led the campaign that saved the Union has branded the SNP’s previous economic case for independence as ‘virtually fraudulent’.
Lord Alistair Darling claimed that people in the SNP do not believe the arguments they made during the 2014 referendum campaign.
He also said he does not expect to see another referendum campaign in his lifetime because the economic case for separation has ‘got worse’.
Lord Darling said: ‘I do not believe there will be another Scottish referendum in the foreseeable future, possibly not in my lifetime.
‘I’ll tell you why not – firstly, the public don’t want it. Most of the British public, never mind the Scottish public, are heartily sick of referendums: they divide, they turn people against each other, the scars are deep and they are still there in Scotland and people don’t want that again.
‘Secondly, the emotion of what happened in 2014 is still there but the economics have got worse – oil price is a case in point.
‘It is interesting that nationalists now openly talk about the virtually fraudulent nature of the document they produced in 2013 which set out the economic case. None of them will stand by it now, yet there’s another one coming out on Friday.
‘What seems to be different is we’re now going to have a Scottish pound – sharing the pound is off the agenda. What they’ve probably noticed is if you spend a lifetime abusing people then break away and say now can we have a close relationship with you, it doesn’t somehow work.’
During yesterday’s events, Lord Darling praised Ruth Davidson, saying he had watched her grow in politics, and added: ‘I still wonder why you are a Tory.’
Lord Darling said the campaign for the Union during the last referendum was always focused on the economy because, aside from one in three people who believed in ‘Scottish exceptionalism’, it was the biggest issue for other voters.
Defending claims he ran ‘Project Fear’, he said: ‘There were a large number of people whose votes were up for grabs and their inclination was to say Yes, unless you could convince them that they would be worse off economically.’