THE man behind the Believe in Scotland (BiS) and Business for Scotland (BfS) groups has said the figures for its first year of operation show they were the most active and effective national independence campaigning organisations in 2020.
And Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp said he is ready for the next stage with billboards, posters and a mobile app – all paid for through a “pledge” as opposed to a crowdfunder.
BiS was launched in January at a packed Trades Hall in Glasgow, when polls were still neck-and-neck. MacIntyre-Kemp said the audience was surprised at its prediction that it would help Yes support hit 55% by summer and 60% by the end of next month, but a recent run of polls has put support for independence as high as 58%.
BiS/BfS have targeted Yes groups and No voters with a focus on the economic arguments for independence, as well as filling in the gaps providing them with information and campaign materials, such as the acclaimed book Scotland the Brief and various leaflets.
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“To this day we’ve got people on the streets doing socially distanced campaigning, selling books and giving away leaflets,” said MacIntyre-Kemp. “We distributed a quarter of a million leaflets just before lockdown on Scotland’s wealth, so basically that means households throughout Scotland ... were given a really positive message about the economy and I think that really has helped.”
He said the Yes movement had been talking internally and he was keen to show how BiS/BfS were operating differently.
“We have been reaching out beyond the Yes bubble all the time,” he added. “In June we got a 52% Yes vote and I was absolutely certain that was really low. I didn’t think the polling was really reflective of how people were thinking.”
He turned their focus towards questions aimed at establishing who would be better running the economy and if it would be better with independence. Then came a poll jump to 54% Yes and then a focus on 55%. “We thought it was important that we were the ones to get the 55% result,” he said. “If we’d had a Union-supporting newspaper polling at the same time who got the 55%, they would have said something along the lines of ‘a temporary blip in Yes support due to Covid’.
“Because we got it we were able to release that the 2014 result had been reversed, and newspapers right across the country carried that.
“It changed the entire narrative of the year ... and that’s the importance of campaigning.”
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