A SCOTTISH independence campaigner living in a Tory-held seat has launched a billboard campaign to make residents aware of the “tremendous” Yes victory in last month’s election.
Jane Brown has mounted two 8ft x 4ft billboards close to the A93 in the heart of Royal Deeside in Aberdeenshire West.
Despite a strong challenge from SNP candidate Fergus Mutch, which saw the party’s vote up by 3.6%, tactical voting from the LibDems to the Tories saw land-owning Alexander Burnett hold the constituency.
Disappointed by media coverage of the Scottish election, which often focused on the fact the SNP were one short of a majority rather than the increased pro-independence presence in Holyrood, Brown decided to get locals thinking about the result.
“I just really felt that the tremendous result the SNP had at the last election wasn’t very well covered in the media,” she told The National. “It makes me quite angry, the bias that goes on in the media.”
READ MORE: Unionist tactical voting kept key marginal Aberdeenshire seat from SNP
“I’m hoping that it might encourage people to talk about it,” she explained. “There’s too many people don’t seem to want to engage in the conversation, also I don’t see why people need to get so angry about it. I don’t know where this awful anger and nastiness sometimes comes from. It’s really disappointing that you can’t have a conversation without it turning nasty. Respect people’s views – I’m a great one for that, because I thought we lived in a democracy, but sometimes I wonder.”
Brown, who campaigned for independence at Highland Shows and around Scotland ahead of the 2014 referendum, and helps by leafletting in her local area, isn’t on social media at all to get the word out – so felt the physical billboards would be a better strategy.
“I can’t stand the negativity that I’m told about that happens on social media,” she said. “I can’t cope with that. Even for the politicians that I personally don’t like, I certainly don’t like to hear some of the stuff that’s being said about them. I don’t think that’s fair at all.”
The campaigner hopes to keep the billboards on display to neighbours and passing traffic for a bit longer yet.
“I won’t be able to leave this one there for too long, because it’ll maybe come to the stage where people look at it and think ‘what on Earth’s that about’,” Brown explained.
“The election will be too far past by then. I just wanted the people in this area, if they weren’t aware of the outcome, the fact that the people of Scotland have spoken in favour of another referendum … it was just in case people weren’t aware of that. And the fact that it is our choice, and it should be our choice.”
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