Massive fall in SNP tweets about independence after election

The Sunday National conducted an analysis of tweets sent by elected SNP politicians from the start of the campaign trail on March 25 until six weeks after polling day, up to and including June 17.

For MSPs we only included the 64 who were elected to Holyrood on May 6, and the current 45 SNP MPs at Westminster.

READ MORE: Tweets from SNP politicians on independence and indyref2 in graphs

And, what we found was a significant drop in the number of tweets which mentioned independence, an independence referendum, or indyref2, after the election had passed.

It comes as Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP released a new video on Thursday urging the public to get involved with the upcoming independence campaign.

The four-minute-long video claimed the party had “stepped up their digital campaigning” and were “embracing social media”.

READ MORE: How much each SNP politician has tweeted about independence

But, to what extent are elected SNP politicians contributing to this drive for a second vote on social media?

The tweets the Sunday National analysed were sent from the politician’s official Twitter account and includes the sharing of newspaper articles, replies to other users, videos and campaign content. Only tweets which related to Scottish independence were counted. For example, tweets regarding independence in Wales or other countries were not counted.

There was a total of 870 tweets from SNP MPs and MSPs during the time frame which mentioned independence. Of those, 586 were posted before the election, while only 284 were posted afterwards.

Independence was referenced 473 times, independence referendum 203, and indyref or indyref2 257 times.

Some tweets used more than one phrase, and the use of #indyref2 was popular during the campaign, leading the number of references (960) to be higher than the number of tweets (870).

According to our analysis, 29 SNP politicians, 20 MSPs and 9 MPs, didn’t mention independence or a referendum in the time frame at all. Only one MSP, Kenneth Gibson, does not have a Twitter account.

And on the whole, MPs appear to be more prolific in pushing the independence cause on Twitter.

The 36 MPs included in our analysis make up the bulk of the total, with 353 tweets about independence sent before the election, and 232 after.

It should be noted that Angus MacNeil and Pete Wishart, both MPs counted in this analysis, had the highest number of tweets than any other SNP politician. If we remove them the figure is much lower, with 203 tweets sent before the election and 131 after.

Additionally, Joanna Cherry, who tweeted seven times after the election, was on leave during the election campaign and was not active on Twitter.

However, a more significant drop comes when we look at MSPs, who were running for election to Holyrood in the first half of the stated time frame.

AS 20 of the MSPs had no mention of independence on their twitter feeds during the stated time period, that leaves us with 44 in total.

And, in the run up to polling day, those 44 MSP hopefuls, who were then elected, sent 233 tweets about a second independence referendum.

Afterwards, over the next six weeks following the election there were only 52 tweets made about independence.

When the SNP politicians sent these tweets is also interesting, if we look at specific dates. The two most popular days for tweeting about independence were on May 9 (40 tweets) and May 8 (37). The election results were declared on May 8, which can account for a large share of those tweets.

The next five most popular days were March 30 (31 tweets), May 10 (28), April 13 (27), March 27 (24) and polling day on May 6 (24).

Of those, only May 10 was after the election campaign had ended.

At the bottom end of the scale, the least popular days where only one tweet was sent about independence were June 11, May 17, May 18 and May 28.

And what about the First Minister?

Sturgeon only tweeted four times using the phrases in our analysis.

A further check of her Twitter feed showed three other tweets which we did not include as they did not fit the criteria.

These were regarding Home Office policy after Kenmure Street and what an independent Scotland’s immigration policy would be, a BBC article about indyref2 being taken to court, and an article about Scotland rejoining the EU.

She also tweeted on March 24, just before our analysis began, where she wrote: “For strong, experienced leadership that will steer Scotland through and out of Covid, and then the opportunity for #indyref2 so we can rebuild a country with fairness and equality at heart... #BothVotesSNP.”

An SNP spokesperson said: “It is absolutely ludicrous to cite Twitter as a serious gauge of the priorities of SNP politicians.

“Every one of our MSPs and MPs is focused on keeping their constituents safe during the pandemic and no pointless tallying up of Tweets will change that.

“As promised during May’s election campaign, the SNP – the only party capable of delivering independence for Scotland – will hold a referendum once it is safe to do so, delivering on the resounding mandate given to us by the people of this country.”