The offer of more powers to Scotland in the event of a no vote did not persuade significant numbers of voters to reject full independence in last autumn’s referendum, according to new research from the University of Edinburgh’s Scottish Referendum Survey.
The notorious ‘Vow’, signed by the three Westminster leaders and printed on the front page of the Daily Record in the final days of the Scottish independence referendum campaign, has become a central part of the post-referendum political narrative. Alex Salmond in particular has insisted that it was decisive in persuading wavering voters to stick with the union, while Nicola Sturgeon has written in the Guardian that failure to honour the vow would result in punishment for the Westminster parties in May’s general election.
But the latest tranche of data, conducted by YouGov for academics from the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Essex, found that among no voters only 3.4% cited the offer of more powers as the main motivation for their decision.
This contrasts with considerably larger figures for ‘feeling British/believe in Union’ (29.5%), ‘too many unanswered questions’ (27.8%), ‘Independence would make Scotland worse off’ (26.3%), ‘wanted to vote Yes but it seemed too risky’ (5.3%) and ‘don’t trust Salmond’ (5.2%).
The data also offered evidence of how deeply embedded the vow narrative has become amongst some parts of Scottish society. By contrast, yes voters when asked to identify what they believed had motivated no voters replied overwhelmingly that ‘Westminster leaders misled Scots over more powers’ (41.3%).
This trumped ‘the press/BBC bias towards No’ (17%), ‘electorate lost its nerve’ (11.8%), ‘warnings from banks/business about Yes’ (11.2%), ‘Better Together ran a negative campaign (7.9%) or ‘Yes Scotland ran a poor campaign’ (0.9%).
Introducing the findings, co-author Ailsa Henderson said: “Over the last four weeks of the campaign, people did think that more powers are likely to arrive, but that made little difference to how they voted. I feel very confident in saying that the Vow was not a decisive factor.”
Certainly the SNP has been clear about what it thinks [about the effect of the Vow]. The reason there has been no compelling counter-narrative is partly a continuation of what happened during the campaign, with yes dominated by one party and Better Together having a multiplicity of voices all saying slightly different things.
Henderson is quick to draw out detail on the ongoing effects of the referendum, and another striking difference between yes and no voters.
Over half of yes voters said that the referendum had prompted them to get more involved in politics, compared with just under a quarter of no voters. 65.7% of yes voters believed that they would stay involved in politics after the referendum was over, compared with 31.9% of no voters. And, despite being on the losing side, yes voters described greater levels of satisfaction with democracy in Scotland than no voters. Henderson adds:
It’s more than just an interesting story of opposing sides having different understandings. It’s about what the consequences might be for public life in scotland with the winners being less satisfied with the result than the losers. Yes felt they had optimism on their side and that carried over too.
For Jonathan Shafi, co-founder of the Radical Independence Campaign, the effect of the vow on people’s voting intentions in September is less significant than the template it created for the ongoing constitutional debate.
In my view, it wasn’t the Vow in particular [that persuaded people to vote no] but the concerted campaign of fear over the final weeks, with threats about shopping bills rising, losing pensions, and important institutions moving away from Scotland.
Jeane Freeman of Women for Independence, one of the grassroots yes campaigns that has most successfully redefined itself post-referendum, is clear.
It doesn’t matter how many people it swayed. What matters is that it was made and that the credibility of the Westminster parties and the UK government rests on whether that promise is honoured or not.”
She finds the sense of gloom from no voters reflected in the data unsurprising. “The unionist parties thought that all they had to do was deliver the no vote, which was a reflection of a very superficial understanding of politics in Scotland. Lots of Labour voters, for example, voted no but nonetheless were very unhappy about their party sharing a platform with the Tories.”
Finally, a few other interesting details to pick out:
- yes voters made up their minds later in the day than no voters
- 64.4% said that the televised debates had no impact on their voting intention
- 44% of those switching from no to yes in the final weeks of the campaign cited lack of trust in Westminster, the Tories or UKip