Scotland in Union

Online, SIU maintains a website (https://www.scotlandinunion.co.uk/), a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/scotlandinunion/), a Twitter feed (https://twitter.com/scotlandinunion) and an Instagram account (https://www.instagram.com/scotland_in_union/). On their website, SIU publishes updates, requests donations and highlights specific campaigns.

SIU's first campaign was to encourage tactical voting against the Scottish National Party during the 2015 UK general election.[6]

SIU also encouraged tactical voting in the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, and in November 2019, SIU launched an online tactical voting guide for Scottish voters in the run up to the 2019 UK general election. This guide suggested which party people should vote for in their constituency if their priority was to stop the SNP.[7]

In the run up to the 2021 Scottish Parliament election SIU launched its tactical voting campaign for voters whose priority was stopping an SNP majority and another referendum. An SNP majority was stopped, with Sir John Curtice commenting that tactical voting probably played a part in this outcome.[8]

SIU has paid for opinion polling on Scottish independence on several occasions, with a particular focus on the question of whether people think Scotland should remain part of the United Kingdom or leave the United Kingdom.[9][10]

The use of this format has been criticised by SNP depute leader Keith Brown, who said in 2019 that it was "a deliberate bid to confuse independence with Brexit".;[11] in 2021 three political academics carried out a study which demonstrated a statistically significant difference between this wording and the 2014 question formulation.[12] The most recent of these polls at the time of writing, in November 2021, showed that 54% of Scots would vote to remain part of the UK, with 38% saying Scotland should leave and 8% undecided.[13]

To coincide with the annual publication of the Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland figures, known as GERS, SIU introduced a new method to break down the 'UK dividend' from which Scotland benefits,[14] for local communities across Scotland.[15] In addition, SIU's Chief Executive, Pamela Nash, wrote an article in the Scotsman to highlight the benefits to Scottish public spending which come from sharing across the UK.[16]

SIU has also highlighted the Scottish Government’s Export Statistics Scotland publication,[17] to increase awareness of the proportion of Scotland’s trade with the rest of the UK and to call for more open acknowledgement of Scotland's trade situation.[18]

SIU has used billboards on several occasions, including In 2016, SIU paid for a large billboard advert near the SNP conference in Glasgow, urging Nicola Sturgeon to “change the record” on independence and rule out another vote.[19] In 2017 in Aberdeen, again outside the SNP conference, SIU organised an advertising van with the message ‘Referendumb' that was unveiled to awaiting press as SNP members gathered for the conference.[20] A billboard campaign was launched again in 2021 in the run up to the 2021 Scottish Parliament election[21]

In September 2018, SIU launched a 'Yawn' campaign, using newspaper advertisements. This was a campaign aimed at people who are 'tired' of the constant constitutional debate; "SNP politicians are still campaigning for an independence referendum that Scotland does not want. Tired of this?" The campaign gained additional media attention when a Police Scotland Twitter account tweeted in apparent support of the campaign, before deleting their tweet.[22]