'Yes' vote chief in campaign pledge

Oct 20 2012

The man leading the campaign to persuade Scots to back independence wants to contact every voter in the country in the run-up to the 2014 referendum.

Blair Jenkins, the chief executive of Yes Scotland, said the UK was now "one of the most unfair and unequal" countries in the Western world.

He pledged to run a grassroots campaign across Scotland for independence, saying people north of the border wanted to "change direction".

He predicted Scots would vote to leave the UK in two years, declaring that 2014 "will be the year of Yes".

Mr Jenkins, a former head of news at both BBC Scotland and STV, argued there was a "national movement" and "national groundswell" towards independence.

Addressing the SNP annual conference in Perth he said: "Yes Scotland is going to be very much a grassroots campaign, a groundswell campaign right around the country."

He promised all of Scotland's 32 council areas would have a Yes Scotland group working for independence by the end of this year He said: "I intend that we will be campaigning in every street in every community. If I have my way, my vision is that every household in Scotland will have contact from the Yes Scotland campaign over the next two years. We will engage people in conversation about why independence is the right thing for this country."

A poll published on Thursday showed support for the union was almost double that for independence. In the Ipsos Mori survey 30% of those questioned backed Scotland becoming independent, compared with 58% who wanted it to remain in the UK, with 12% undecided.

Mr Jenkins said: "Frankly I don't pay much attention to polls right now."

He argued if everyone who supported independence could convince just one other person to vote Yes in the referendum, then the campaign would be successful. He told the conference "On any opinion poll statistically it is true that if everyone intending to vote Yes can persuade just one other person, then we win. Your job over the next two years is to persuade just one other person - I think we can do that."