The referendum campaign digested: how Cameron's tactics backfired

Playing hardball with the first minister over the referendum choices failed to account for the Scots' dislike of the Tories

• Scottish referendum – follow all the latest

The Guardian, John Crace, Thursday 18 September 2014

Signing the referendum deal in 2012: Alex Salmond, right, with David Cameron,
 and behind, Scottish secretary at the time, Michael Moore, and deputy
first minister, Nicola Sturgeon. Photograph: Gordon Terris/EPA

You could begin in 1707 with the Act of Union. You could begin with the 1997 referendum that led to the creation of the Scottish parliament.

To keep it simple, though, it's easiest to start with the 2011 Scottish elections in which the Scottish Nationalist party (SNP) won an overall majority for the first time. As a referendum on Scottish independence had been one of the key points in the SNP's manifesto, the coalition government in Westminster was rather obliged to grant one.

This was, in many ways, as awkward for Alex Salmond, the Scottish first minister and SNP leader, as it was for David Cameron who, along with the rest of Westminster, preferred to ignore the noisy northern neighbours. Salmond had built a career on being the underdog, the permanent outsider; being ignored only increased his popularity in Scotland.

Now he was being taken seriously it was time to put up or shut up. If he lost the referendum, he would lose a large part of his political raison d'etre. Independence would be off the menu for decades.

All of a sudden independence wasn't the only game in town. "How about we have three questions on the referendum?" he suggested to Cameron. "Yes, no, and devo max."

George Osborne advised Cameron to play hard ball. The polls indicated that given a simple choice of yes or no, the Scots would vote no. So why give Salmond a "get out of jail free card"? They'd never liked him anyway.

The only concession Salmond was able to get was a lowering of the voting age to 16, which he reckoned would increase the yes vote by a small margin.

Whereupon everyone but the Scots forgot about the referendum for a couple of years as it was assumed a no vote was a formality and that come 19 September it would be business as usual.

What got discounted in the calculation was the Scottish dislike of the Tories, the dislike of the Westminster establishment in general and the belief that Scotland had always been given a raw deal.

Little by little, the polls moved towards yes and, as they did so, the no campaign began to bring out the big guns, with Gordon Brown finally bussed in to take over from Alistair Darling as project leader.

Panic properly set in less than two weeks before the voting when an opinion poll indicated the yes campaign was ahead for the first time. The three parties in Westminster, along with many broadcasters and newspapers, realised there was a turn-up on the cards, and so sent every available hand on deck up north to save the union.

Cameron, Miliband, Barack Obama, the EU, the Queen, Bob Geldof and JK Rowling all pleaded for the Scots to see sense. "You'll be broke. You'll rot in prisons abroad. You'll never get out of Scotland alive."

Cameron even promised the devo max option he had refused three years before. The Scots could have anything. Love. Money. Holidays. Blue skies. Anything but independence.

Too late for many Scots, including many traditional Labour voters. They had been given a glimpse of a promised land; of a fairer, more equal society where the sun would shine and Andy Murray would win Wimbledon again. Nor did they care if it all went pear shaped. So what if they had no jobs, if their health service collapsed, if they were left with Fred the Shred to run what was left of their financial services industry? At least they would have been bankrupted by their own rather than England.

Better to be poor than a slave. And so it went down to the wire.

Related Articles:

After the referendum, the reckoning: why Cameron should fear for his future
Salmond: Scottish leader who will win either way

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“…  Government

Let us speak of government. We're not speaking of your government, but of any government - the way it works, how it survives, how it has survived, the way it campaigns, and how it elects leaders. It's going to change.

Years ago, I told you, "When everybody can talk to everybody, there can be no secrets." Up to this point on this planet, government has counted on one thing - that the people can't easily talk to each other on a global scale. They have to get their information through government or official channels. Even mass media isn't always free enough, for it reports that which the government reports. Even a free society tends to bias itself according to the bias of the times. However, when you can have Human Beings talking to each other all at once, all over the planet without government control, it all changes, for there is open revelation of truth.

Democracy itself will change and you're going to see it soon. The hold-outs, the few countries I have mentioned in the past, are doomed unless they recalibrate. They're doomed to be the same as they have been and won't be able to exist as they are now with everyone changing around them.

I mentioned North Korea in the past. Give it time. Right now, the young man is under the control of his father's advisors. But when they're gone, you will see something different, should he survive. Don't judge him yet, for he is being controlled.

In government, if you're entire voting base has the ability to talk to itself without restriction and comes up with opinions by itself without restriction, it behooves a politician to be aware and listen to them. This will change what politicians will do. It will change the way things work in government. Don't be surprised when some day a whole nation can vote all at once in a very unusual way. Gone will be the old systems where you used to count on horseback riders to report in from faraway places. Some of you know what I am talking about. Government will change. The systems around you, both dark and light, will change. You're going to start seeing something else, too, so let's change the subject and turn the page. …