Project Fear How an Unlikely Alliance Kept a Kingdom United But a Country Divided Joe Pike 9781785900518 Books
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Project Fear
Project Fear How an Unlikely Alliance Kept a Kingdom United But a Country Divided Joe Pike 9781785900518 Books
"Project Fear" by Joe Pike is about a referendum campaign which went wrong and should be required reading for anyone planning to take part on either side in the forthcoming campaigns for and against British membership of the EU - if only as a terrible warning of the mistakes to avoid.I knew before I read this book that both sides had messed up during the Scottish Referendum battle but until I read this book I did not realise how badly.
What "Project Fear" is:
* a fascinating inside account of the "Better Together/No Thanks" campaign in the Scottish independence referendum, which continues to the 2015 general election and describes how the referendum result turned into a phyrric victory for most of the actors on the winning site as they suffered electoral annihilation the following year.
* extremely interesting and entertaining
* impossible to put down for anyone interested in politics
* A "how not to do it" manual for anyone planning a referendum campaign (Vote Leave, Leave.EU, and "Britain stronger in Europe" please note)
What "Project Fear" is not:
* Strong on analysis
* Entirely impartial - the author has obviously spoken to many people from both campaigns and clearly made a genuine attempt to fairly give both sides of the story but it is patently evident that he is much more closely connected to "Better Together" and Scottish Labour in particular than to the SNP or "Yes Scotland" and most, though not all, of the interesting insights in the book are on the "Better together" side.
Ironically we find out in the early pages of the book where the expression "Project Fear" came from. It was coined within "Better together" not as a description of the campaign they wanted to fight but as how they thought the "Yes" campaign would try to paint them. The irony is that the term leaked and of course the SNP were delighted at the chance to do exactly that.
The first thing which horrified me about this book was how the divisive nature of the campaign, the untrue statements put about by the Nationalists and over-concentration on negative arguments by the unionists, have left a legacy of distrust and anger which will scar Scotland for years. Hence my comment about the referendum campaign having gone wrong, whichever result you would have liked to see.
The second thing which horrified me on reading this book was the dawning realisation of how easy it would be for each side in the forthcoming European referendum to repeat the mistakes of one or both sides. The epilogue to this book notes that "The dynamics of the EU and SCottish referendums are eerily similar. It also notes that there have already been attempts to draw lessons that people involved in the one campaign can learn from the other, though the consensus view was that the main lessons to learn were the mistakes to avoid.
And what mistakes!
One side failed to do the heavy lifting of working out exactly how an Independent Scotland would work - the SNP's 650 page manifesto for a Scottish nation contained just one page of costings and their proposal that an Independent Scotland could keep the pound was, as Labour's Scottish leader rightly described it, like someone initiating a divorce but wanting to keep the joint bank account.
The other side failed - until, arguably, shortly before the end of the campaign - to come up with a compelling positive vision for Scotland within Britain and made far too much use of negative warnings about what could go wrong with Independence - many of which were in my humble opinion, entirely justified but some were silly and even certain of the valid points could be (and were) easily made by the SNP to look extremely petty.
The book brings out the way the referendum campaign was also disfigured by highly abusive campaigning from some quarters: there were people on both sides who rose above this but others on both sides who did not. The manner in which the worst offenders on both sides, particularly some "Cybernats," went out of their way to make life hell for those they disagreed with and regarded as traitors was incredibly harmful and counterproductive: had they succeeded the new nation they created would have come into being in an atmosphere of intolerance and hate.
The book also describes how that anger continued up to the General election. It has continued since then, as well, and one issue the book does not cover is that some of that anger and bitterness extends into the rest of the UK as well. Many English voters - and please, note, on this occasion when I say English I really mean English, not British - were thoroughly irritated by having to listen to months of hearing their part of Britain regularly blamed for all the ills of Scotland by the more extreme supporters of the Yes campaign in a manner which sometimes verged on anti-English racism. One of the reasons for the surprise Conservative victory in the 2015 general election was the reluctance of many English voters to risk the possibility that a Labour government might have to rely on SNP support.
This book is mostly narrative, without very much in the way of analysis, but the narrative is a gripping one - even if it is a bit like a modern political version of a cross between a Greek tragedy and "Macbeth."
Some people reading this review might ask, since "Better together" won the campaign, why I have praised this book as an account of a referendum went wrong. My answer would be that nobody can have been happy with the overall outcome. The Yes campaign didn't get independence: the parties who worked together in the "No campaign" won in 2014 but were slaughtered in the following year's general election; and
If I had bought this book believing that I was buying a comprehensive and balanced academic assessment or history of the campaign, I would have been disappointed and given it at most three stars, But "Project Fear" was presented as an inside account of the story of the campaign, and how an unlikely alliance left a Kingdom united but a country divided, and that it delivers in spades. It is on that basis that I have given it five stars.
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Project Fear How an Unlikely Alliance Kept a Kingdom United But a Country Divided Joe Pike 9781785900518 Books Reviews
"Project Fear" by Joe Pike is about a referendum campaign which went wrong and should be required reading for anyone planning to take part on either side in the forthcoming campaigns for and against British membership of the EU - if only as a terrible warning of the mistakes to avoid.
I knew before I read this book that both sides had messed up during the Scottish Referendum battle but until I read this book I did not realise how badly.
What "Project Fear" is
* a fascinating inside account of the "Better Together/No Thanks" campaign in the Scottish independence referendum, which continues to the 2015 general election and describes how the referendum result turned into a phyrric victory for most of the actors on the winning site as they suffered electoral annihilation the following year.
* extremely interesting and entertaining
* impossible to put down for anyone interested in politics
* A "how not to do it" manual for anyone planning a referendum campaign (Vote Leave, Leave.EU, and "Britain stronger in Europe" please note)
What "Project Fear" is not
* Strong on analysis
* Entirely impartial - the author has obviously spoken to many people from both campaigns and clearly made a genuine attempt to fairly give both sides of the story but it is patently evident that he is much more closely connected to "Better Together" and Scottish Labour in particular than to the SNP or "Yes Scotland" and most, though not all, of the interesting insights in the book are on the "Better together" side.
Ironically we find out in the early pages of the book where the expression "Project Fear" came from. It was coined within "Better together" not as a description of the campaign they wanted to fight but as how they thought the "Yes" campaign would try to paint them. The irony is that the term leaked and of course the SNP were delighted at the chance to do exactly that.
The first thing which horrified me about this book was how the divisive nature of the campaign, the untrue statements put about by the Nationalists and over-concentration on negative arguments by the unionists, have left a legacy of distrust and anger which will scar Scotland for years. Hence my comment about the referendum campaign having gone wrong, whichever result you would have liked to see.
The second thing which horrified me on reading this book was the dawning realisation of how easy it would be for each side in the forthcoming European referendum to repeat the mistakes of one or both sides. The epilogue to this book notes that "The dynamics of the EU and SCottish referendums are eerily similar. It also notes that there have already been attempts to draw lessons that people involved in the one campaign can learn from the other, though the consensus view was that the main lessons to learn were the mistakes to avoid.
And what mistakes!
One side failed to do the heavy lifting of working out exactly how an Independent Scotland would work - the SNP's 650 page manifesto for a Scottish nation contained just one page of costings and their proposal that an Independent Scotland could keep the pound was, as Labour's Scottish leader rightly described it, like someone initiating a divorce but wanting to keep the joint bank account.
The other side failed - until, arguably, shortly before the end of the campaign - to come up with a compelling positive vision for Scotland within Britain and made far too much use of negative warnings about what could go wrong with Independence - many of which were in my humble opinion, entirely justified but some were silly and even certain of the valid points could be (and were) easily made by the SNP to look extremely petty.
The book brings out the way the referendum campaign was also disfigured by highly abusive campaigning from some quarters there were people on both sides who rose above this but others on both sides who did not. The manner in which the worst offenders on both sides, particularly some "Cybernats," went out of their way to make life hell for those they disagreed with and regarded as traitors was incredibly harmful and counterproductive had they succeeded the new nation they created would have come into being in an atmosphere of intolerance and hate.
The book also describes how that anger continued up to the General election. It has continued since then, as well, and one issue the book does not cover is that some of that anger and bitterness extends into the rest of the UK as well. Many English voters - and please, note, on this occasion when I say English I really mean English, not British - were thoroughly irritated by having to listen to months of hearing their part of Britain regularly blamed for all the ills of Scotland by the more extreme supporters of the Yes campaign in a manner which sometimes verged on anti-English racism. One of the reasons for the surprise Conservative victory in the 2015 general election was the reluctance of many English voters to risk the possibility that a Labour government might have to rely on SNP support.
This book is mostly narrative, without very much in the way of analysis, but the narrative is a gripping one - even if it is a bit like a modern political version of a cross between a Greek tragedy and "Macbeth."
Some people reading this review might ask, since "Better together" won the campaign, why I have praised this book as an account of a referendum went wrong. My answer would be that nobody can have been happy with the overall outcome. The Yes campaign didn't get independence the parties who worked together in the "No campaign" won in 2014 but were slaughtered in the following year's general election; and
If I had bought this book believing that I was buying a comprehensive and balanced academic assessment or history of the campaign, I would have been disappointed and given it at most three stars, But "Project Fear" was presented as an inside account of the story of the campaign, and how an unlikely alliance left a Kingdom united but a country divided, and that it delivers in spades. It is on that basis that I have given it five stars.
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