How do you lead a nation to independence? In 2007 this was the question faced by Alex Salmond, leader of the SNP, after the political party toppled half a century of Labour Party dominance in Scotland, and was, for the first time, able to form a minority government in the Scottish Parliament. How do you defend Scotland's place in a centuries-old political union? This was the alternative question faced by Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. 'Yes or No: Inside the Indyref' tells the inside story of the clash between these two opposing political forces and the politicians and pollsters, IT specialists and bloggers, playwrights and historians who dedicated themselves to securing victory for their opposing vision of Scotland's future. They used pioneering IT technology, in-depth political polls, scare tactics and even an old 'Irn Bru' crate to get their message across to the public. Contributors include Nicola Sturgeon, Alex Salmond, Gordon Brown, George Osborne, Alistair Darling, Nick Clegg, Mhairi Black, Douglas Alexander, Kevin Pringle, Andrew Dunlop, Blair Jenkins, Michael Moore, Jim Sillars, Geoff Aberdein and Andrew Cooper.
During the first debate in the Indy Ref campaign Alistair Darling stood and looked across at his opponent Alex Salmond. 'I thought he had lost the plot.' Instead the SNP leader was merely attempting a bold new approach to argument, one involving alien invasion. Salmond explains, 'it's like having a great idea last thing at night - less of a good idea in the morning.' The journey from the announcement of the date of the referendum to the key debates is the subject of the second episode of the series and is a journey that involves a bitter fight over the pound, robust debate and when it comes to cyber abuse, and the judicious use of toilet paper to make a political point. The 2014 Referendum balanced hope and fear in equal measure and in this episode political players, household names and grass roots campaigners tell the inside story of a political revolution.
On Friday 4 September 2014, less than two weeks to referendum day, Nicola Sturgeon was trying to learn the results of a new poll to be published in The Sunday Times. The editor of the paper's Scottish edition, Jason Allardyce recalled: "I was pretty much locked in a room at the end of this briefing and kind of interrogated by Nicola." A point Nicola Sturgeon denies: "I didn't lock him in any room - I may have barred the door so that he couldn't get out of the room." Yet all that Allardyce would concede was that the poll was 'interesting". It would be another 24 hours before the news broke that, for the first time, Yes had taken the lead: 51 to 49. Alex Salmond was on the golf course, taking a rare break for a couple of hours, when his chief of staff Geoff Aberdein called to break the news. Salmond reflected that if the poll had been published the next week, just a few days before referendum day, the momentum could have pushed Yes over the line. The response in the UK Government was, as Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, remembers: "overwhelming panic." On the Sunday morning Osborne, the prime minister, who was at Balmoral with the Queen, and their advisers spoke on a conference call. The decision was made that Osborne, who was to appear on the BBC's 'Andrew Marr Show', would offer additional powers to the Scottish Parliament in a bid to halt the momentum of Yes but Davidson felt it was a mistake. The decision was also made to cancel Prime Minister's Questions and send all three party leaders to Scotland. In addition the Labour Party also sent a trainload of MPs to Glasgow for a huge rally, but instead their arrival became a viral hit for Yes. This episode explains how, in the wake of The Sunday Times poll, the BBC decided to pull their referendum correspondent Allan Little off the daily news beat to make a last-minute Panorama and he was replaced by Nick Robinson, the political editor. A news report by Robinson sparked claims of bias by the B