Scottish pro-independence group aims to distance yes vote from Alex Salmond
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Version 0 of 1. One of Scotland's largest pro-independence groups staged a mass canvass in urban areas on Wednesday in an attempt to distance the yes vote from the Scottish National party leader, Alex Salmond. The move by activists supporting the left-wing Radical Independence Campaign (RIC) was timed to follow Tuesday night's televised debate between Salmond and his opponent Alistair Darling, the leader of the pro-UK Better Together campaign. Jonathan Shafi, a RIC organiser, said the canvass aimed to visit at least 10,000 homes in 40 neighbourhoods on Wednesday – poor areas with historically low levels of voter registration and traditionally seen as Labour heartlands. About 1,000 campaigners, including Scottish Green party members, trade unionists and socialist and community activists, mobilised for the last RIC mass canvass, he said. "We want to emphasise the point that the independence movement is far bigger than Alex Salmond first of all, and emphasise the point this vote is about more than party politics and more than leaders of political parties," he said. "We're targeting areas of low voter turnout. We believe such areas have been systematically disengaged from formal politics and we see the referendum as the opportunity to re-engage these communities." Yes Scotland, the official pro-independence campaign set up and run by the Scottish National party, is expected to run a parallel campaign seeking to emphasise their case that a yes vote is not a vote for the SNP by highlighting backing from well-known non-nationalists. SNP strategists, who are to launch the party's own campaign on independence within days, concede that their chances of winning the referendum will be hampered if voters see 18 September as a vote on Salmond and the SNP. The STV debate, which was watched by an estimated 1.7m people on television and online, saw Salmond and Darling clash angrily over the future of Scotland's currency, and Darling's stance on whether Scotland could thrive outside the UK. In a blow to Salmond, a snap poll for the Guardian by ICM found that 56% of 512 voters who saw the debate thought Darling had won, excluding don't knows, and 51% overall thought the former Labour chancellor had offered the strongest arguments. However, 47% thought Salmond had a more attractive personality, with 39% favouring Darling. On independence itself, 41.6% would vote yes and 47.3% would vote no – one of the narrowest margins of recent polls. As SNP strategists began their inquest into the debate, independence campaigners were pleased that 44% of undecided voters thought Salmond came out ahead in the debate, against 36% who backed Darling. John Curtice, a polling expert at Strathclyde university, said the overall poll findings were difficult for Salmond, because he had been widely expected to win: "In broad terms, it was a score draw, but given that was Alistair Darling's objective, that's a win for the no side." Lesley Riddoch, the broadcaster and writer who is planning to join the RIC mass canvass, said the campaign had already been successful in building a broad movement outside conventional politics. She added, however, that non-nationalists had to recognise that without Salmond's leadership, the referendum would never have taken place. "There's a point where jumping around and disowning someone whose existence is the only reason we're holding this independence debate can be counterproductive," she said. "If Alex Salmond hadn't taken over the SNP leadership when he did [in 2005] and if he hadn't then walked through the consecutive election victories he had, we wouldn't be here." With his advisers insisting that the first minister had succeeded in getting key messages about the case for a yes vote across, Salmond sought to shake off his perceived defeat by insisting that independence would be a "golden opportunity" for business. At a pro-independence rally by Business for Scotland on Wednesday morning, Salmond sought to appeal to centre-left voters by acknowledging that while Scotland was a wealthy country on paper, "for far too many people it doesn't feel that way". "For Westminster, London and the south-east of England are seen as the most important economic areas so investment and other job-creating measures are inevitably targeted there," he said. "Independence is not a magic wand but a golden opportunity to tailor economic policy to match our needs here in Scotland and meet the challenges we will face." The SNP commands up to 38% of the vote in recent Holyrood polls, and it won 29% of the vote in the recent European election in May – far short of the 50% needed to win September's referendum. The pro-independence Scottish Green party won 8% in May. With a registered electorate of 4.1 million voters and a expected turnout of up to 80%, that requires the yes campaign to persuade up to 500,000 non-voters, swing voters and Labour voters to back independence. |