Better Together chief Blair McDougall "spat at in front of daughter" after independence referendum
dailyrecord.co.ukThe leader of the No campaign has said the independence referendum was “deeply unpleasant” as he revealed getting spat at in front of his daughter.Despite being on the winning side, Better Together chief Blair McDougall said the indyref injected “poison” into politics and had been a “distraction” from real issues.But he also conceded the official anti-independence campaign had been “joyless” in persuading Scots to back the Union.Wednesday is the ten year anniversary of a historic referendum which saw voters reject independence by 55.3% to 44.7%.McDougall, now the Labour MP for East Renfrewshire, led the official pro-UK campaign and spoke to the Record about his memories of 2014.He was behind the successful strategy to hit the Yes side on the economy and currency, but his memories are bittersweet over the aggressive tactics of pro-indy supporters on the streets and online.He said: “I have mixed thoughts.
First of all, I have a lot of pride, where a lot of the world fell to populist, identity politics, Scotland was an outlier in that process, almost in world politics.“But the pride of it is tinged with the feeling I had all the way through it, which I’ve had in the ten years since, which was it was an enormous distraction from the very real problems Scotland has.”“That was always the feeling every day of the campaign.
As much as I am proud of what we achieved, I’m not somebody whose politics start or end with issues of identity or nationality.”He said: “I think it was a deeply unpleasant experience for those of us on the side who wanted to remain in the UK.“We have to acknowledge there were two different realities at play.
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