Much has been said about the Yes campaign, much has been written about its vibrancy and excitement, openness and inclusivity. It was planned to be the biggest grassroots campaign in Scotland’s history, it has been said that it brought new people to politics and represented a departure from the type of campaign seen when political parties fight for our vote. Yes was said to have been positive and Better Together was supposed to have been negative.
This report provides detailed results of what we believe to be the largest and most comprehensive survey of those who said they took part in the Yes campaign. It examined who the volunteers were, what they did, what they thought of the campaign and their experience of it and the results from it provide evidence to support, refine or debunk ideas held about the campaign.
― 993 Yes volunteers responded to an online survey and to collect their views, we contacted a wide range of Yes supporting groups.
― It aims to understand who campaigned, what they did, what motivated them to take part, their assessment of both the Yes and No campaigns and how they experienced being part of it.
― The survey ranges over 64 questions with many multiple item scales and seeks to provide a detailed account of the results including notes on question wording, order and response formats.
― The Yes campaign was successful in bringing new people into political campaigning and many of them expressed an interest in continuing in organised politics afterwards.
― Overall, we can conclude that volunteers believed that the 2014 independence referendum campaign was the largest ever political campaign seen in Scotland and the campaign culture and leadership appears to have been strongly grassroots orientated.