THE YES campaign “couldn’t have done anything differently" during the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, according to an ex campaign chief.
Blair Jenkins – the former Yes Scotland chief executive – told The Daily Record that’s “not to say it was a perfect campaign” or that lessons weren’t learnt.
"The vote in favour of independence ended up being much higher than anyone thought it would be at the beginning of the campaign - and that's because we did run a very good campaign,” he said.
"That's where public opinion was in Scotland at that time, it was an accurate reflection. The majority of people in Scotland were not ready to vote for independence, that's where we were then."
Jenkins, a former BBC journalist. was appointed to run the cross-party Yes Scotland organisation in 2012.
Speaking out ahead of the 10th anniversary of the landmark referendum, Jenkins said that the issue that most bring up is currency when asked what arguably could have done differently.
"And I know a lot of Yes people say, if we'd had a different currency policy, we would have won,” he (above) said.
“[But] I looked at a lot of not only public, but private, polling on currency. And the clear preference, whether they were in favour of independence or not, was to retain the pound.
"The SNP policy was in place long before Yes Scotland launched. But if they had decided to argue for a separate currency, all the polling suggests it would have been more of an uphill struggle.
"I don't think a different currency position would have been a silver bullet that changed the outcome. I don't think there is such a silver bullet."
