This week has seen the official launch of the Referendum Campaign for Scottish Independence but as we know political campaigning has been fierce since the New Year. We have been tracking the sentiment expressed on Twitter and we can see which issues have made the deepest impression.
The issue of a currency union caused chaos amidst the ranks for Better Together as it had not been nailed down from the outset. The subject hit the headlines on March 28th as a rogue Tory implied a currency union was possible in exchange for the Trident nuclear deterrent remaining at Faslane in the case of a Yes vote. Chancellor George Osborne and his Labour and LibDem counterparts proceeded to rule currency union out, insisting independence would mean “walking out of the UK pound”.
The sentiment expressed on Twitter towards both Better Together and the Yes Campaign took a nose dive as a result with tweets referencing #IndyRef and ‘currency’ rising to 1.44k and sentiment sliding into highly negative during the course of a few days.
The Conservatives obviously didn’t get a premonition of the chaos to come because the issue of currency union had already caused a spike of 2.97k tweets just a month before as a result of the panel discussing it on BBC Question Time.
There already is an informal Currency Union in UK, it’s called The Isle of Man. One rule for one and all that. #bbcqt #YESscot #indyref
— David Crombie (@thecapodeicapi) February 13, 2014
A sneak peak at an independent Scotland’s new currency.. #IndyRef pic.twitter.com/ynAcQx1kn6 — Drew McGowan (@TheRealMcGowan) February 13, 2014
The latest word has been from the chancellor telling MPs on the Commons Scottish affairs select committee on 14th May that he was not bluffing when he said a formal deal to share sterling after a yes vote would be economically and politically disastrous for both the UK and Scotland.
Sentiment in Twitter would suggest that people are taking his word for it but only time will tell whether or not currency union remains the most provocative and testing issue. We will monitor it over the next few months.