SIF's thinking out of the box helped fund our Yes group

It ended up being a lot more than the relatively modest proposal we first took to the Scottish Independence Foundation in June of 2018. We wanted to distribute a million leaflets to Yes groups, and with them 8000 Yes flags which they could then sell on to raise funds for their own projects. We’d done smaller leaflet kits before, but the prospect of getting match funding for this project really allowed us to think big.

Established in 2016 after the disastrous Brexit vote, ayeMail is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to Scottish independence. Every year we run a crowdfunder to produce pro-independence leaflets for distribution to Yes groups. In addition, we’ve distributed some 30,000 Yes flags which feature heavily in pro-independence marches, the photos of which are beamed around the world.

Our proposal was relatively modest; we would raise £8000 for leaflet and sticker printing, and we were asking for an additional £8000 for the flag manufacturing. Together these products would be shipped out to Yes groups all over Scotland, giving them campaign materials to work with, and their own revenue stream from the sale of the flags. The Scottish Independence Foundation loved the idea, particularly as it would help Yes groups to raise their own funds. In the end we actually raised more than £27,000 and produced more than 1.8 million leaflets, as well as 350,000 Yes stickers. Now it was just a question of packing and distributing them.

If you’ve ever seen the film Raiders Of The Lost Ark, you’ll recall that at the end of the film the Ark of the Covenant is packed up in a crate and slowly wheeled into a vast warehouse packed with tens of thousands of other largely identical crates, the inference being that it will be lost and never found again. That was the image I had in mind when all of the stuff arrived and we started to box it. We had 2000 re-sealable boxes stacked four deep and two metres high along the length of our modest base of operations. Getting a cup of coffee from the kitchen was now like running an assault course through a maze of cardboard walls. We joked about how there were probably lost tribes roaming among the mountains of cardboard, paper and polyester flags. This was by far the biggest pro-indy project we’d ever done but, amazingly, it was all gone within a matter of weeks.

There’s a lot in the news this week about Russian interference in British elections, and the Scottish Tories have called for an inquiry into funding for the 2014 independence referendum campaign. This is absolutely risible, as it was David Cameron himself who asked Vladimir Putin to intervene in order to prevent Scottish independence. He also asked all of the countries in the Commonwealth, and the United States. Who can fail to remember Barack Obama, egged on by Cameron, suggesting that we should remain “strong, robust and united”? But of course, it was Scotland’s decision. It later emerged that Obama’s remarks were at the request of Downing Street. And just last year it was revealed – from David Cameron himself – that he had begged the Queen to intervene. And intervene she famously did, although Buckingham Palace was far from happy that Cameron made this fact public.

So for the Scottish Tories to demand a witch-hunt into who funded the independence campaign is fantastically hypocritical, and a misdirection tactic at a time when it is Tory finances under the spotlight.

The truth is that there are no billionaires, Russian or otherwise, funding the Scottish independence movement. The vast majority of donations come from ordinary people who donate £10 here, maybe £20 there. I know this because I’ve run nearly a dozen crowdfunded projects myself, and it’s all modest donations from ordinary folk who just want to live in a better society. And this is why the Scottish Independence Foundation is so important. Without an active running political campaign, SIF is the only grant-giving body facilitating projects in the Yes movement. For activists like me, it’s an invaluable resource that helps not just with fundraising, but also planning and execution. When we were drowning in a sea of cardboard, it was SIF who once again stepped up and helped to fund the purchase of pallet and box handling equipment so that we could move the tonnes of leaflets through our kit production process without risking personal injury.

Scottish independence is coming, there is no question about that. It’s just a question of exactly when. Once Covid has been suppressed to the point where we have some normality in our lives, and the dreaded Brexit deadline has passed, we will need your help to secure a future for everyone in Scotland.

You can start today by going to www.sif.scot donate and signing up to a monthly donation.

Lindsay Bruce is the founder of Ayemail