Stephen Noon commends precisely the ‘thinking’ on the constitutional issue that has left Scotland’s cause abandoned up a blind alley for nearly a decade. The idea that “the butterfly campaign that got us from 30% to 45% before and can deliver a similar step change to 60% now” is plainly idiotic when support for Yes in the polls has flatlined for eight years and counting under a regime totally committed to that “butterfly campaign”. How is it possible for Stephen Noon to remain blind to this reality?
Could it be that Stephen Noon regards the “butterfly campaign” as his ‘baby’ and so he feels compelled to defend it at all costs? Even the cost of defying logic?
His attitude is all the more inexplicable for the fact that he clearly recognises the potential of both positive and negative campaigning. He confirms that the SNP made the decision to “nail our colours” to the mast of positive campaigning, eschewing all forms of negative campaigning. It may not have been the intention to completely rule out negative campaigning. But that’s how it was bound to go as soon as the SNP leadership turned its face against that ‘mast’. A presumption against inevitably develops into a prohibition when that presumption is taken up with enthusiasm by activists eager to adhere to the ‘plan’.
Where Stephen Noon and logic part company is when he insists that a form of campaigning that ceased to be effective some months before the vote in September 2014 will somehow start to be effective again now. Logic points in precisely the opposite direct. Logic tells us that what is needed is something different from or additional to the happy-clappy positivity that worked remarkably well in the early part of the 2014 Yes campaign, but whose effectiveness peaked and then diminished at an accelerating rate until it fell off an unscalable cliff.
The reason for this is not difficult to fathom. A political campaign can be likened to climbing a mountain, with the summit representing 100% of the electorate. Elevation equates with the percentage of the electorate persuaded. A mountain is not flat. Duh! Progress towards the summit becomes increasingly difficult as the slope becomes steeper. The terrain will vary for different campaigns. But it will always be the case that the first part of the ascent will be massively easier than the last part – which may be functionally impossible. There comes a point when the cost of resources expended per vote gained becomes prohibitive. There will almost always be a number of votes that are unattainable no matter how much is spent on the effort.
A better analogy, perhaps, would be to imagine the mountain to be a fortress which the campaign must seize. In order to do so it must fight its way through increasingly densely massed and doggedly determined defenders. The initial stages of the attack are relatively easy, encountering only token resistance from a scattering of opponents. Then the advance starts to meet ever greater resistance until with the gates of the citadel in sight, the campaign comes up against crack troops, well-armed, in entrenched and armoured positions behind impassable entanglements of razor-wire and minefields.
Stephen Noon’s ‘theory’ is that the same tactics which took the advance forward n its initial stages will be equally effective throughout the campaign. Logic is nowhere to be seen.
The crazy thing is that he knows what is missing. He knows that there is still the untried option of negative campaigning. Yet he ignores it. Worse! He rejects it! Why?
Why is it not obvious that if there are two masts to which colours may be nailed and nailing them to one doesn’t work out then it might be an idea to try nailing your colours to the other mast?
The assumption that because a relentlessly positive campaign was effective before it must be effective now is too stupid for printable words when circumstances have changed as dramatically as they have over the past decade. Stephen Noon’s preferred campaign strategy long since persuaded all the people it is ever going to persuade. The percentage points needed for Scotland’s cause to succeed are impervious to that form of appeal – an appeal to a pseudo-rational calculation of benefit from a ‘product’ being sold in the manner of time-share villas in Malaga. The appeal to aspiration alloyed with advantage must be replaced with or augmented by and appeal to aspiration alloyed with anger.
Scotland’s cause demands a different mindset; fresh thinking; novel ideas; imaginative tactics; a much more assertive attitude and a completely reframed understanding of the constitutional issue. Independence must cease to be thought of as something that would be nice to have if only the British could be persuaded to give it to us. Independence must be thought of as something essential to Scotland’s very existence which is being withheld from us because we aren’t prepared to assert our ownership of it.
Scotland’s cause needs to appeal to anger. Anger – NOT rage, but cold, calculated anger – is what will provide the energy for the final phase of our fight to restore Scotland’s independence. The anger that will surely follow from a campaign that relentlessly drives home the injustice of the Union.
If you find these articles interesting please consider a small donation to help support this site and my other activities on behalf of Scotland’s cause.
Peter A Bell 
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
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Another thing Stephen Noon said was that “all those involved (in 2014) are still there”. No they aren’t and those that remain are all 10 years older.
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Some of us are more than ten years older, Julian. A lot more than ten years. Ken whit ah mean, eh?
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Who actually gives a toss what Noon thinks, it was only in November last year that he called for any indyref to be pushed back.
Noon works at the unionist shibboleth Edinburgh Uni, and frequents its equally Britnat Glasgow version Glasgow Uni.
In the article Noon calls for indy support to be at 55% to 60% before any move is made. F*ck Noon and the horse he rode in on.
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenational.scot%2Fnews%2F23143078.stephen-noon-snp-pause-indyref2-plans-despite-supreme-court%2F
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All I see here is your “opinion”. You can’t equate your “opinion” with “logic”. Your “opinion” is that the positive campaign got us so far then failed, therefore you “believe” a “negative” campaign is necessary. That is a reasonable assumption but is only one “opinion”. It requires us to accept your conclusion regarding the ultimate failure of the 2014 campaign, and then accept your remedy. Which is fair enough, but it is faith based, not logic. Logic requires irrefutable proof your original conclusion is absolutely correct, and further irrefutable proof your remedy is the only one possible. “Opinions” are not proof.
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Dealing with you is like dealing with a particularly dim mollusc that has somehow learned to type. Fuck it! I’ve got five minutes to spare.
Just because everybody is entitled to an opinion this doesn’t mean all opinions are equally valid. Opinions based on known facts and logical deduction re always superior to opinions based on proud ignorance and bigotry.
That the positive campaign got us so far and then failed is a fact. The evidence for this has been provided repeatedly. The only consistent measure we have for Yes support is opinion polling. The polling indicates that support for Yes has not increased since early 2015. No! I will NOT post that evidence again! Fuck you!
It is a fact that I was responding to an article authored by Stephen Noon in which HE stated that that there were only two “masts” to which a campaign might nail its colours ─ positive and negative. HE said positive had been chosen. The evidence says positive ceased to work. HE said there was only one other option. I was addressing HIS conclusion that the campaign should continue to nail its colours to the positive mast despite the evidence that this had ceased to be effective eight years ago.
HE defined the terms of debate. He gets to because HE is the author of the article. I can only respond in accordance with the terms of debate that HE defined. HE said there is only one alternative to positive and that is negative. If there is only one alternative to the option that the evidence says has failed then LOGIC says that this alternative should be tried. To persist with an option that the evidence says has failed would be contrary to logic. It would be illogical.
I know this explanation will go over your head. I don’t care.
In fact, there is another option. It is the the option which I have consistently argued for since the 2014 referendum. That is the option which says positive and negative isn’t either or. What I have argued for is not abandonment of positive campaigning, but a marked shift in focus towards negative campaigning. The problem was that the Yes campaign for the 2014 referendum became obsessed with positivity; to the extent that anything that looked even vaguely negative came to be regarded as heresy. The problem was that the Yes campaign was only half a campaign. By ruling out negative campaigning the Yes campaign left half its weapons lying in the armoury unused.
I likened the SNP edict against negative campaigning in case it offend the sensibilities of delicate voters (see various utterances from Pete Wishart during and since) to telling the generals readying for a major battle that they are not allowed to use their artillery lest the noise upset the neighbours.
That’s been more than five minutes. But the second part isn’t really for you. It is for those capable of understanding a reasoned argument.
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Always a pleasure Peter.
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There was too much wrong with your reply for me to ignore it completely. Perhaps it’s the reflexly offensive tone you take with anyone that doesn’t fawn at the feet of your “towering intellect”, but I feel a “slightly” fuller response us required.
Firstly, the “positive” campaign did not peak “some months before” the 2014 vote. It peaked mere days before the vote when a poll put YES on 51%. The highest it achieved in the entire campaign and arguably double what it was at the beginning. The entirely “negative” NO campaign had shed more than a third of its support by then. Hardly a ringing endorsement of “negative” campaigning and, conversely, not a shameful indictment of “positive” campaigning.
The reason that YES fell away in the final days was not a “failure” of “positive” campaigning. It was the NO campaign going into overdrive in the final days with mass targeted leafleting of “vulnerable” groups like pensioners, a suspiciously unprecedented on-line presence dwarfing YES (which had previously enjoyed a sizable advantage on-line) and a hyper negative media swamping readers/viewers with non-stop scare stories and lies (e.g. The Vow). A “negative” YES campaign would likely not have achieved the success the “positive” campaign did, and a sudden move to “negative” campaigning in the final days would not have countered the final NO offensive.
Secondly, support for independence has NOT flatlined. It is idiotic to claim it has. It has gone from 45% in the referendum to 38% in late 2016 to 55% in early 2023. Not even close to a “flat line”. The Scottish Social Attitudes Survey shows a steady increase in support for independence, year on year, from 33% in 2014 to 52% in 2021. I have posted some of the evidence. Your welcome!
Thirdly, you have spent years writing article after article bemoaning the lack of any campaign for independence since the referendum. Now you claim the campaign that, according to you, did not exist remained too “positive” and has therefore “failed” …. despite “never existing” …. ? If a campaign has not existed since 2014 how can it be blamed for “flat lining” polls? Subsequently, how can you know a tactic that doubled support for YES in 2014 would not be successful in a new campaign now, when all the “strong and stable/broad shoulders of the Union” arguments of the NO campaign demonstrably lie in tatters (unlike in 2014)?
Fourthly, it has probably escaped your notice (you being the epitome of tunnel vision) that the current Scottish Govt tone has been very much a mixture of “positive” and “negative” in relation to independence, highlighting the Westminster shit show and emphasising the benefits of independence. So, despite your musings to the contrary, you’ve pretty much got what you wanted.
Fifthly, there is a difference between “negative” and “nasty”. The current Scottish Govt tone is “negative” towards the Union and unionists. Much of the malcontent content towards unionists (what little there is with them being focused on using unionist material to bring down the pro-Indy Scottish Govt) is downright “nasty”. Perhaps that’s why you wrote this article; to deflect attention away from the Scottish Govt’s “negative” tone that undermines your article’s premise, and defend the “nastiness” of your malcontent audience. They seemingly can’t help themselves and it is self defeating but, being well ensconced in their echo-chambers with little discourse with real world people, they can’t imagine why.
All a reasonable and evidence based opinion unsullied by the myopic tunnel vision of the echo-chambers.
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I will admit that on seeing Noons picture I did feel somewhat disinclined to expend my time and attention on any more of his ‘output’.
Fortunately I was not to find myself as disappointed as I had expected.
Contrary to your guess Peter that Noon may well still be wedded to his prior folly (of fatally flawed campaign messaging strategy), there is also a more generous interpretation possible.
“it is time to get the full campaign started once again. That means not just the command-and-control version that has been sitting at SNP HQ over these past years, but also the real, true, grassroots Yes movement in all its diversity and creativity – the butterfly campaign that got us from 30% to 45% before and can deliver a similar step change to 60% now.”
If by referring to the “grassroots Yes movement” as “the butterfly campaign” he is simply and superficially harking back to the idea/slogan of “let a thousand flowers bloom”
then that must surely be a positive aspiration.
And who would argue with the remainder of those positive words?
Of course those of us afflicted with a more jaundiced eye, from mistrust of his past words and actions will likely be reluctant to take his carefully considered platitudes at their superficial meaning.
For reference, I looked back to your previous article “Feeding the crocodile!” of Aug 30, 2022
and some of the comments regarding the scarcely credible ex-SNP political adviser there:
https://peterabell.scot/2022/08/30/feeding-the-crocodile/#comment-66142
The drubbing a previous kite flying article took from commenters here:
https://www.thenational.scot/news/20861423.stephen-noon-says-time-third-way-scottish-independence-debate/
and the revealing and thought provoking article by Robin McAlpine who explicitly names Stephen Noon for deliberately creating some of the problematic issues at the heart of the SNP (non!)campaign.
https://robinmcalpine.org/without-arguments-independence-could-fail/
In closing Stephen Noon calls for
“an initiative like a new constitutional convention, or a similar process of civic conversation and engagement, would be worthwhile.”
but then in his penultimate paragraph he cannot resist but reintroduce his language of qualified independence.
“more independence has the backing of a clear majority of people in Scotland”
Is that the reintroduction of the spectre of appeasement, capitulation and the false promises of Triangulation from his totally unworkable “Third Way.”?
Has Stephen Noon unskillfully left that lingering smell as he heads towards his closing highlight:
“a necessary journey of nation building, of moving forward together towards independence in our inter-dependent world.”
The suspicion has to remain that this is still the same old guff wrapped in a slightly less pungent poke. 😦
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I will admit that on seeing Noons picture I did feel somewhat disinclined to expend my time and attention on any more of his ‘output’.
Fortunately I was not to find myself as disappointed as I had expected.
Contrary to your guess Peter that Noon may well still be wedded to his prior folly (of fatally flawed campaign messaging strategy), there is also a more generous interpretation possible.
“it is time to get the full campaign started once again. That means not just the command-and-control version that has been sitting at SNP HQ over these past years, but also the real, true, grassroots Yes movement in all its diversity and creativity – the butterfly campaign that got us from 30% to 45% before and can deliver a similar step change to 60% now.”
If by referring to the “grassroots Yes movement” as “the butterfly campaign” he is simply and superficially harking back to the idea/slogan of “let a thousand flowers bloom” [in the independence garden]
then that must surely be a positive aspiration.
And who would argue with the remainder of those positive words?
Of course those of us afflicted with a more jaundiced eye, from mistrust of his past words and actions will likely be reluctant to take his carefully considered platitudes at their superficial meaning.
For reference, I looked back to your previous article “Feeding the crocodile!” of Aug 30, 2022
and some of the comments regarding the scarcely credible ex-SNP political adviser there:
https://peterabell.scot/2022/08/30/feeding-the-crocodile/#comment-66142
The drubbing a previous kite flying article took from commenters here:
https://www.thenational.scot/news/20861423.stephen-noon-says-time-third-way-scottish-independence-debate/
and the revealing and thought provoking article by Robin McAlpine who explicitly names Stephen Noon for deliberately creating some of the problematic issues at the heart of the SNP (non!)campaign.
https://robinmcalpine.org/without-arguments-independence-could-fail/
In closing Stephen Noon calls for
“an initiative like a new constitutional convention, or a similar process of civic conversation and engagement, would be worthwhile.”
but then in his penultimate paragraph he cannot resist but reintroduce his language of qualified independence.
“more independence has the backing of a clear majority of people in Scotland”
Is that the reintroduction of the spectre of appeasement, capitulation and the false promises of Triangulation from his totally unworkable “Third Way.”?
Has Stephen Noon unskillfully left that lingering smell as he heads towards his closing highlight:
“a necessary journey of nation building, of moving forward together towards independence in our inter-dependent world.”
The suspicion has to remain that this is still the same old guff wrapped in a slightly less pungent poke. 😦
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You are right, Peter – Anger – which is an emotion people develop once they realise they have been deceived and understand how. An oppressed people are the last to know due to their colonial/cultural conditioning. But once they ken it they cannae un-ken it.
https://wp.towson.edu/iajournal/the-socio-political-determinants-of-scottish-independence/
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