SCOTTISH former football manager Sir Alex Ferguson was invited to front the campaign to keep Scotland in the Union but turned down the request fearing backlash, according to Alastair Campbell.
Tony Blair’s former spin chief makes the claim in extracts of personal diaries between 2010 and 2015, which are currently being published by DCT Media.
Yesterday we reported on how Campbell says Alex Salmond invited him to join his negotiating team in the event of a Yes win during the 2014 indyref. The former No campaigner also wrote of becoming less sure about the Union.
Today’s extracts reveal the strategist repeatedly called on Sir Alex to publicly front the No campaign.
Campbell says former PM David Cameron was keen to get the manager on board. The strategist believes his persistent phone calls could have left him more “chilly” towards the idea.
Campbell writes: “He had been saying how desperate he was for No to win, but when I said he could do something to help, he pulled back.
“He said he didn’t want to get involved because the people putting their heads above the parapet were getting shot at.
“He saw the abuse that JK Rowling and others had been getting, and he was not up for it. It was lose-lose. Unsure that an intervention would help, but sure that he would get dog’s abuse.”
Campbell also called on then Celtic manager Neil Lennon in an effort to appeal to “working-class Catholics”.
He says while Lennon was “friendly and onside”, he “got enough s*** in Glasgow without adding to it”.
Also in the diaries, Campbell reflects on the immediate aftermath of the 2014 vote. He recalls Cameron talking “nonsense” about English votes for English laws, and feeling the PM wasn’t “heeding the lessons”.
He goes on: “Going to be difficult for Labour. SNP would get a big boost and they would carry on portraying Labour as the same as the Tories, which was why Cameron’s move was so annoying and stupid.
“Saving the Union and his job by the skin of his teeth, and he dives straight into another constitutional mess, short-termist nonsense.”
Earlier this week extracts from Campbell’s diaries revealed he believes Boris Johnson will “break the Union”.
READ MORE: Is former Tony Blair spin chief Alastair Campbell on a No to Yes journey?
“I suspect I am not alone in feeling that English nationalism and global populism are a big part of what fuelled both Brexit and Johnson, which in turn has helped the SNP’s cause too,” Campbell said.
“It is not at all fanciful to imagine that in ‘taking back control’ through Brexit, Johnson will break the Union in at least two parts, Scotland and Northern Ireland.”
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