Better Together (campaign)

History

Alistair Darling MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer under Gordon Brown, officially launched the campaign on 25 June 2012 at Edinburgh Napier University. Darling was a Director and the Chairman of the campaign alongside: Conservative MSP David McLetchie (died August 2013); Craig Harrow, convener of the Scottish Liberal Democrats; and Labour MSPs Richard Baker and Jackie Baillie. The campaign was officially registered as Better Together 2012 Limited and its registered office was located in the Fountainbridge area of Edinburgh.

On 11 November 2013, Nosheena Mobarik, who was formerly on the Chair for CBI Scotland, was appointed as a Director of Better Together.

Better Together's Campaign Director was Labour activist Blair McDougall, who was a special adviser to Ian McCartney (2004-2007) and James Purnell (2007-2008) during the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He was national director of the Labour Party's Movement for Change organisation from 2011 and also ran David Miliband's campaign for the Labour Party leadership before joining Better Together. Former Scottish Government adviser and Strathclyde Police press chief Rob Shorthouse is Director of Communications, Kate Watson the Director of Operations, and Gordon Aikman the Director of Research.

Although the UK Independence Party (UKIP) also favoured Scotland remaining within the United Kingdom, Better Together has refused to work with them on the grounds that "they are not a Scottish party". UKIP in return accused Better Together of being "petty and small minded".

In May 2013, Scottish Labour launched its own campaign called United with Labour. Its co-ordinator, Labour MP Anas Sarwar, stated that the Labour movement had a different vision of Scotland's future from the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, but that they would continue to work with Better Together.

Darling stated in May 2013 that his side needs to "win well" in order to prevent another independence referendum within just a few years, to head off calls for another poll, the so-called "neverendum". He contrasted his campaign's position with that of Yes Scotland, saying they had to win only "by one vote" to achieve their ultimate aim. Although Darling did not say what percentage of the vote "win well" would entail, his colleagues had earlier said that the Yes vote would need to be pushed under 40% in order to answer the independence question for "a generation".

In June 2014, Better Together adopted the slogan "No Thanks" in its campaign publicity. BBC political correspondent Iain Watson commented that "Better Together" had been intended to sound positive, but it was felt that it lacked meaning. "No Thanks" was adopted after testing with focus groups, although Better Together remained the formal name of the campaign group itself. It was inspired by Non Merci ("No Thanks") the slogan used in the 1980 referendum on Quebec's separation from Canada.

Subsections

On 8 June 2013, Better Together launched its "Forces Together" campaign, consisting of active and veteran service personnel as well as their family members, with a goal of emphasising the importance of the British Army.

On 21 June, Darling launched the "Rural Better Together" campaign at the Royal Highland Show. Rural Better Together will be chaired by Liberal Democrat MEP George Lyon who said farmers had given the group a "great response".

Donations

The pro-union campaign disclosed its donor list on 6 April 2013 and donations of more than £1.1 million (US$1,866,000) had been received from approximately 9,500 donors. The Herald commented that "The preponderance of business people is a blow to Alex Salmond, who has made a stronger economy a cornerstone of the SNP's case for independence".

Among the major donors was Douglas Flint CBE, the Glasgow-born chairman of transnational bank HSBC, while the largest single donation was £500,000 (US$848,000)—almost "half the total"—which came from Ian Taylor, an international oil trader with a major stake in the Harris Tweed industry; Taylor made the donation after a meeting with Darling, Better Together chairman and former Labour Chancellor. Since 2006, Taylor, the chief executive of Vitol Plc, has donated £550,000 (US$933,000) to the Conservatives.

Other donors of more than £7,500 (US$12,700) included Edinburgh-born crime writer C. J. Sansom, who gave £161,000 (US$273,000), and engineering entrepreneur Alan Savage, who handed over £100,000 (US$170,000). In June 2014, Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling, who is a friend and former neighbour of Darling, made a £1,000,000 (US$1,694,000) donation to Better Together.

Dispute

By April 2013, three of the campaign's four largest donors, responsible for £686,000 (US$1,163,500) of the total £1.1 million received between them, were Flint, the chairman of HSBC; Taylor, chief executive of Vitol; and Sansom, who described the SNP as "dangerous" in a note appended to his novel Dominion. All three drew criticism from Yes Scotland for being donors located "outside Scotland". The campaign's acceptance of the £500,000 donation from Taylor was also criticised by the pro-independence organisation National Collective, who pointed to "serious incidents [...] linked to Ian Taylor's business background".

The Herald also highlighted Taylor's links with "dubious deals in Serbia, Iraq, Iran and Libya", as well as UK tax avoidance behaviour. Angus Robertson, of the SNP, added:

This information is extremely serious and raises questions the No campaign must answer. Material in the public domain states that during his tenure as chief executive Mr Taylor's company paid $1m to Serbian war criminal Arkan, who was indicted at the Hague for crimes against humanity... Also during Mr Taylor's tenure it is reported Vitol paid kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime in return for oil supply contracts, and was involved in a tax avoidance scheme in the UK for over a decade. His donations to the Tories were questioned and criticised by Labour's Douglas Alexander in relation to a conflict of interest about oil contracts in Libya, so the No campaign must have been aware of these matters.

Taylor responded by threatening the Herald, National Collective and another pro-independence website, Wings Over Scotland, with legal action for defamation. National Collective closed its website down for several days, before replacing the article in question with a slightly edited version that included responses from Vitol. On 16 April 2013, the Herald published a response from Vitol's public relations (PR) firm to the allegations as an appendix to its original article. Wings Over Scotland ignored the initial threat, but then challenged a second letter without amending its piece.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie defended the use of Taylor's money, saying: "If it's good enough for Harris tweed, it should be good enough for Better Together." A YouGov poll undertaken on behalf of the SNP in May 2013 suggested that 43% of Scots surveyed wanted the donation money to be returned; compared to 34%, who believed the money did not need to be returned.

Fine for irregularities

In January 2016 the campaign group was fined £2000 for failing to account for £57,000 of campaign spending.

Accusations of negativity

The Scottish Government and Yes Scotland accused Better Together on several occasions of "scaremongering", whilst the Scottish Sun and Sunday Herald both complained about use of "scare stories" and negative nature of their campaign. These arguments were rejected by Better Together, who contended that the Yes campaign have used accusations of scaremongering to obscure some of the practical issues surrounding independence.

On 23 June 2013, in an article marking the campaign's first anniversary, the Sunday Herald claimed that "Privately, some inside Better Together even refer to the organisation as Project Fear". The name "Project Fear" subsequently appeared in other news outlets and was co-opted by pro-independence campaigners. The following line of the Sunday Herald's article said that "[Blair] McDougall is unrepentant about the tactics", but on the following day's edition of Scotland Tonight McDougall denied ever hearing anyone use the term "Project Fear".

On 18 January 2013, journalist Joyce McMillan wrote in the Scotsman: "The truth is that the tone of the No camp’s response to the independence debate has – in too many cases – been so reactionary, so negative, and so fundamentally disrespectful of the Scottish Parliament as an institution, that I now find it hard to think of voting with them, no matter what my views on the constitution. And this, for me, is a new experience in politics – to enter a debate with a strongish view on one side of the argument, and to find myself so repelled by the tone and attitudes of those who should be my allies that I am gradually forced into the other camp"

On 17 February 2013, an editorial column in the Sunday Mail said "The No campaign needs to start explaining why the Union can make Scotland better not why independence will be a terrible thing as Scots, mired in a swamp of endless negotiations, wander between our mud huts borrowing cups of woad. If, as their campaign claims, we will be better together, they need to start telling us why."

In March 2013, a column in the Observer by Scottish Daily Mail executive editor Kevin McKenna, said: "In one respect, 18 months is a very long time for a political campaign. For surely there is a limit on how long otherwise proud Scots, night after night, can stomach [Better Together's] own narrative: that Scotland is too wee to go it alone; that we can't make our economy work; that we must have a babysitter sometimes; that at other times we must be back before midnight. Months of telling people that, unlike Ireland, Denmark and Luxembourg, Scotland is simply not strong enough may exact a toll on Better Together volunteers well before it takes a toll on the voters."

During the 2012 Olympics in London, Better Together were criticised for attempting to use the games as political propaganda, in particular the participation of Scottish athletes in Team GB which was taken to imply that supporters of independence weren't interested in the Olympics. In November 2012 Alistair Darling suggested Scottish independence would threaten the continuation of British culture in Scotland. National Collective responded to Alistair Darling's comments by stating that it was entirely for individuals to determine their own identity and not politicians. In September 2013 during a Labour Party Conference, the party's Scottish Leader Johann Lamont described Scottish nationalism as "a virus." Co-convenor of the Scottish Greens and Advisory Board Member of Yes Scotland, Patrick Harvie has challenged the notion that supporters of independence are all nationalists, stating "National identity is not at the heart of my politics. In fact, it’s not really relevant to my politics at all. People can reach a view in favour of independence without being motivated by Scottish nationalism, just as people can reach a view in favour of staying in the UK without being driven by the identity politics of “Britishness”".