EDINBURGH, May 14 (RIA Novosti), Mark Hirst – The campaign to keep Scotland within the UK is based on fear and is unlikely to articulate a positive message for staying in the Union, a senior political commentator has told RIA Novosti.
Broadcaster and writer Iain Macwhirter believes that the pro-UK Better Together campaign has based its case for maintaining the 307-year-old Union between Scotland and England on “fear and negativity.”
His comments came as a new survey by opinion pollster TNS Scotland found 53 percent of Scottish voters thought the pro-UK campaign was negative, compared to just 29 percent who thought the pro-independence side was running a negative campaign.
The poll also revealed the gap between the two sides has narrowed to nine percent, with support for the “yes” side at 35 percent and the pro-UK campaign standing at 44 percent. However TNS Scotland also showed that 20 percent of Scots have yet to reach a decision ahead of the upcoming independence referendum, scheduled for September 18.
Macwhirter believes that despite the narrowing of the polls, the pro-UK campaign will persist with its negative campaign strategy.
“If they abandon that now it will look like they have lost the argument, which in many respects they have,” Macwhirter told RIA Novosti.
“’Project Fear’ as it was called involved spelling out the risks of independence – Scotland losing the pound, being thrown out of Europe,” Macwhirter added. “Most Scots don't believe George Osborne's threat that: ‘if Scotland walks away from Scotland it walks away from the pound’,” he said.
“The idea that the EU, which has admitted countries like Bulgaria and Romania, would blackball Scotland – which is already in the EU – is patently absurd,” he added.
Macwhirter thinks the campaign strategy of Better Together will continue whilst they maintain a lead in the polls.
“The ‘no’ campaign is still in the lead and it would be difficult for them to try a radical reversal of the policy or tone at this stage because it will look as if they are in crisis because of the narrowing opinion polls,” Macwhirter told RIA Novosti.
But Macwhirter believes the intellectual arguments by the “no” side will improve following the sidelining of former Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling, who Conservative Party sources have claimed has been replaced by the “more effective” Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary, Douglas Alexander MP.
Macwhirter added, “Fear is still the key as far as the Unionists are concerned.”
Veteran political activist, author and former Member of Parliament Jim Sillars believes the change in leadership of the Better Together campaign won’t improve the quality of the pro-UK arguments being made in the debate.
“I’ve never rated Alexander as a heavyweight,” Sillars told RIA Novosti. “Nice lad, but lacks gravitas,” Sillars added.
The Scottish independence referendum takes place on September 18 and will ask voters “Do you agree Scotland should be an independent country?”
