THOUSANDS of copies of a pro-independence book which its authors say has the power to win over crucial undecided voters to Yes are rolling off printing presses as the campaign for Scotland’s future enters a new era.
Business for Scotland, the grassroots independence campaign headed by Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, has ordered 20,000 copies of its book Scotland the Brief for a second print run, which will officially launch at a sold-out event on St Andrew’s Day.
As the presses rolled at a Glasgow lithographic printworks, MacIntyre-Kemp told The National that the booklet will convince wavering voters whose “hearts say Yes but [whose] heads say No”.
He said: “People tell us that if you meet somebody who is undecided about independence and they say something like ‘my heart says Yes but my head says No’, give them a mini copy of Scotland the Brief and you’ve almost certainly got a vote – that’s what it’s all about and it’s been a great success.
“It starts off by talking about how you define a successful economy and we don’t think it’s about just GDP growth – we think it’s about the wellbeing economy, it’s about building a fairer, greener, happier, healthier, more prosperous, more equal society and that’s how you also get GDP growth – by building an economy that works for the people and not just the big corporations.”
Business for Scotland conducted polling earlier in the year which showed putting the case for a well-being economy – where people’s happiness and health are given the same weight in measuring economic success as the traditional metric of growth – is key to winning voters over to Yes.
The book will also contain striking facts about the strengths of Scotland’s economy, which MacIntyre-Kemp believes will convince voters Scotland has got what it takes to become “one of the world’s most successful economies after independence”.
He added: “There are amazing facts in there, such as that Glasgow manufactures more satellites to go into space than any other city in Europe…that there is more water in Loch Ness than there is in the whole of all the lakes and rivers in England, we talk about all the different things that Scotland has that would allow us to thrive as an independent economy…you don’t understand Scotland’s economy until you’ve read this book because no one’s ever tried anything like this before.
“But once you have read the book you’re going to know that it’s a ridiculous idea that we wouldn’t thrive.
“We will become one of the world’s most successful economies after independence, once we’ve cast off the Westminster straitjacket.”
The other central aim of the project is to give Yes groups up and down the country a money-making opportunity, by selling them the book at wholesale price so they can sell them on to the public and make a profit.
It comes in two sizes; one is the dimensions of a normal paperback while the smaller copies easily slip into a jacket pocket.
The latter would give the book the potential to mimic the success of prototype Yes activist handbook, the Wee Blue Book by controversial independence supporter Stuart Campbell.
Despite his subsequent litany of controversies, Campbell’s Wee Blue Book was read by thousands and came in a pint-sized format to be easily read and shared.
MacIntyre-Kemp, an entrepreneur and former director of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, said indy groups had been brought out of “hibernation” in the wake of 2014 because they were able to fund their activities with sales of the book.
MacIntyre-Kemp said: “The whole idea of Believe in Scotland was to launch a book which would help fund the Yes movement, that would get Yes groups up and campaigning, give them materials to speak to people about.
“The way we’ve worked this is that the books retail for £3.50 [for the pocket-sized book] and £7.50 [for the big version].
“We sell them to Yes groups for about a pound and the Yes groups can then retail them on and we know that local Yes groups have managed to raise tens of thousands of pounds to fund their own activities by selling the book.”
And he has put his money where his mouth is, in the spirit of his campaign group called Believe in Scotland, by taking the financial hit to support Scottish businesses – telling us he could have saved thousands having the book published abroad.
He said: “We could have saved thousands of pounds and money’s tight – we live on donations – we could have got it printed in Turkey for instance, but we wanted to support jobs in Scotland.
“A book about Scotland’s economy should be printed in Scotland, by a Scottish company that is a Scottish success story in Glasgow.”
It comes after the Supreme Court blocked a second referendum going ahead next year – firing the starting gun for the next election to be fought by pro-Yes parties on the sole issue of independence.
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon announced in the wake of the ruling there would be an emergency party summit for members to hash out how the de-facto referendum on independence should be fought.
Details remain contested at the moment, with some within the Yes movement calling on the Scottish Government to hold an early Holyrood election – while Sturgeon ally Mhairi Hunter, a former SNP councillor, said it was “more likely” to lead to an agreement for another referendum.
