page_title: Yes Scotland
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Yes Scotland / History
caption_attribution_description: English:
context_page_description: Yes Scotland was the organisation representing the parties, organisations, and individuals campaigning for a Yes vote in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. It was launched on 25 May 2012 and dissolved in late 2014 after Scotland voted against independence.
  Yes Scotland's chief executive was Blair Jenkins, and Dennis Canavan was the chair of its advisory board. Stephen Noon, a long term employee and policy writer of the SNP, was Yes Scotland's chief strategist. Its principal opponent in the independence campaign was the unionist Better Together campaign.
  By the formal start of the referendum campaign period in May 2014, it had become the "biggest grassroots movement in Scottish political history", said Jenkins. The campaign did not win independence, but "transformed politics in Scotland", suggested The Herald.
context_section_description: It was launched in Edinburgh on 25 May 2012. The launch featured actors Alan Cumming and Brian Cox.
  A few days after the official launch, the campaign was forced to make changes to its website; this was after people who followed its Twitter feed had been listed on the website as supporters of the campaign.
  Yes Scotland officially opened its campaign staff headquarters on 19 November 2012 in Hope Street, Glasgow. The headquarters were open to the public. By February 2013, Yes Scotland employed 17 people full-time.
  In March 2013, a number of Yes Scotland activists promoted the movement at bedroom tax protests throughout Scotland.
  Yes Scotland first disclosed its finances in April 2013, revealing it had taken over £1.6m in donations.
  In July 2013, the Sunday Herald reported that there were "persistent rumours" of funding problems within Yes Scotland, and suggested that these were related to Jacqueline Caldwell and Susan Stewart leaving the campaign organisation. The organisation "shared out" the women's responsibilities between other employees instead of replacing them.
  Throughout 2013, Yes Scotland launched specially targeted campaign groups like Veterans for Independence, Farming for Yes, and Crofters for Yes.
  In August 2013, the chief executive of Better Together, Blair MacDougall, accused figures within Yes Scotland of "copy[ing]" his campaign's slogan — "best of both worlds" — to "reassure voters over independence". In response, a senior SNP source said that "It's arrogant of the No campaign to claim ownership of language."
  Later in August, Yes Scotland filed a police complaint that its internal emails had been accessed illegitimately. Details of the particular email that was accessed were not initially released, but it was later revealed to be correspondence with Dr Elliot Bulmer in connection with an article he wrote for the Herald in July, A Scottish constitution to serve the commonweal. Their campaign opponents, Better Together, accused Yes Scotland of "secretly paying off supposedly impartial experts" and urged an inquiry, as Dr Bulmer is research director of the Constitutional Commission, a registered charity which states that it has no political alignment. Yes Scotland said the payment was a "nominal fee for the considerable time and effort [Dr Bulmer] spent" on the piece, and its content was not influenced.
  Then, the Telegraph reported that Police Scotland were opening a hacking inquiry in response to a complaint received from the campaign about internal emails that appeared to have been accessed illegitimately and leaked to the media.
  At the end of 2014, chief executive Blair Jenkins sent a message to supporters to join the Scottish National Party, the Scottish Greens or the Scottish Socialist Party to ensure that campaigners "keep the spirit alive".
caption: Yes Scotland activists at demonstration
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A470", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2013:03:30 13:31:15", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6155", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/500", "EXIF FNumber": "3", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2013:03:30 13:31:15", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2013:03:30 13:31:15", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "287/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "101/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "101/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "63/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2592", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1944", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2592", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1944", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3178", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "81000/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "81000/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}