VS Day, Victory in Scotland, a year ago Alistair Darling pulled off an extraordinary win by a decisive 10 point margin in the Scottish independence referendum, now Nicola Sturgeon's bottle has crashed so hard she is saying No Thanks to a second referendum, she knows Scots won’t vote for indy with her at the helm, 'Civic Nationalism' is a fraud

Dear All

Scottish people have long memories; one of their better memories will be the work that Alistair Darling did in the Scottish independence campaign.

Some people doubted him, I didn’t, not for a moment, while Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon thought they were on a version of the X Factor; they totally misjudged the mood of the Scottish people.

Alistair Darling is no longer an MP, he recently was awarded a peerage, given his length of service and the positions he has held in government, I unlike some people support his nomination to the House of Lords.

Alistair Darling will be an asset to the House of Lords.

Last year, Scotland was in the middle of a full blown anti English campaign led by the Nationalists, lies were the currency of the Yes Camp.

Hatred was the currency of the Yes Camp supporters, hatred of Scots, hatred of English and hatred of anyone who had the courage to stand up publicly and say No!

What did I fight for?

I fought to save the Scottish NHS, I fought to save the BBC and I fought to save Govan Shipbuilders in my area which is the Pollok Constituency.

Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon would have destroyed thousands of jobs that working class Scots relied on to put bread on the table. I didn’t have to know anyone in the three companies affected but I did realise what the SNP was doing was morally wrong.

There wasn’t a fair referendum because Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon lied; their masks slipped and we saw the true nature of these despicable individuals.

As the polls tilted in one direction and another, the frenzy reached fever pitch with some people, as the polling day drew near Alistair Darling was fighting of his political life.

In the end, despite what some people called a shambolic campaign at Better Together which I commented on the lack of operational awareness, Alistair Darling to his credit won by a huge margin.

10 percentage points!

In truth as I always said, the victory wasn’t just one by one man; it was won by the majority of the people of Scotland.

We won’t accept lies, we won’t accept a sham blue print of rubbish; we won’t accept the Scottish National Party running an independent Scotland.

On ‘White Paper’ day I was a guest of the BBC, at the end of the show and in my closing argument; I said the problem with Alex Salmond’s Government was the issue of trust, the odious Natalie McGarry, now an MP said no there wasn’t.

Next day, BBC political editor Brian Taylor ran an article, the subject, trust in the SNP Government!

  

3.6 million Scots voted in the Scottish independence referendum, because of the way the arguments were framed by the Nationalists, it was Scots against English.

Nicola Sturgeon is trying to hoodwink Labour voters into believing that indyref 2 is a viable option, it isn’t, Scottish independence as I keep saying has come and gone, Sturgeon won’t get the support she needs to win, and the legacy of division and hate won’t be forgotten.

Remember some of the lies you were told?

Automatic EU membership

You could keep the pound

Second oil boom

Scotland the Saudi Arabia of renewables

Scottish independence would have led to austerity max and suffering the like of which Scots had never seen, there was no plan for independence, the white paper, was a miserable 650 pages of trash.

SNP list MSP Joan McAlpine tried to liken it to the Constitution of the United States; McAlpine was deluded in that respect.

I was at the historic count in Glasgow, I managed to get a ticket, although Glasgow voted Yes, in Pollok the Nationalists had 30/40 people, BT had 5/6, the Nationalists got circa 27k and Better Together got circa 23k.  

Willie Rennie, the Scottish Lib Dem leader, described the Better Together campaign as "secretive" and "shambolic", after each event, I would do a report highlighting the good and bad aspects of the events for people I knew.

A new book is available to read called Project Fear, by journalist Joe Pike, he paints a picture of chaos, confusion and organisational blunders by those charged with saving the Union.

Given this was the case, the win by Alistair Darling is even more remarkable, I have to say if there is a next time, then the BT side should go the whole hog and get professional political campaigners and not party apparatchiks who not only couldn’t plan an event on the ground but also didn’t had a work ethic.

I have done many political campaigns, some wins and some losses, but the Better Together campaign was one which I enjoyed a lot, I wasn’t fighting to get someone into political office, I was fighting to save Scotland for a better day.

Yours sincerely

George Laird 

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University