If you vote Yes, there will be no going back
No campaign hopes new message will save Union
CAMPAIGNERS battling to save the Union will try t o hammer home t he message that a Yes vote in September’s referendum will be ‘irreversible’.
Undecided voters will be told there is ‘no way back’ on the doorstep and through cinema screens, as Better Together hi ghlights t he economic uncertainty s urrounding independence.
The pro- Union group’s new poster campaign, Best of Both Worlds, had hinted at a more positive message.
But campaign chiefs believe dropping all negative campaigning will play into Yes Scotland’s hands.
Two of the three messages Better Together’s army of supporters will deliver focus on the negatives of Alex Salmond’s bid to break away from the UK.
The third reinforces the ‘ better job opportunities and more powers f or Scotland’ message which is appearing on 200 billboards around the country.
Cinema adverts will also warn a Yes vote is ‘irreversible’ and will urge undecided voters to think about their children and grandchildren, as well as themselves, and back the union.
Better Together director Blair McDougall said the campaign has issued a ‘call to arms’ to get the message across. He said: ‘There will be a big campaign push happening the weekend after next. We will be at hundreds of events around the country targeting undecided voters.
‘ We will be gathering people together to knock on doors, which we believe will be opened by undecided voters, and listening as much as talking.’
However, one elections expert said
‘Listening as much as talking’
Better Together needed a strong positive message to balance i ts warnings of no way back.
Professor John Curtice, of Strathclyde University, said: ‘The problem Better Together has is this referendum is no longer just about the future of independence, it is also about the future of the Union.
‘Focusing on negatives is fine as long as long as you can keep the referendum about the merits of independence. When it becomes about the merits of the Union, then at that point you have to say “this is what we’re offering you”.’
Yes Scotland has been criticised for its own negativity after attacks on business leaders, such as Iain McMillan of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Scotland, who have questioned its separation plan.
But yesterday it insisted it was the group running the positive campaign. Nationalist MSP Rob Gibson said: ‘The fact a Yes vote will ensure it will be “irreversible” t hat Scotland al ways gets t he governments we vote for will be a very good thing.
‘The No campaign’s relentless negativity has seen it suffer in the polls and now it seems its only response is to ramp up the attempts to scare people into voting No. People in Scotland are simply not taken in by the “cataclysmic” nonsense that the No campaign’s Project Fear is producing.’