Establishment Yes Scotland was launched in
Edinburgh on 25 May 2012. The launch featured actors
Alan Cumming and
Brian Cox. A few days after the official launch, the campaign was forced to make changes to its website; this was after people who followed its Twitter feed had been listed on the website as supporters of the campaign. Yes Scotland officially opened its
campaign staff headquarters on 19 November 2012 in Hope Street, Glasgow. The headquarters were open to the public. By February 2013, Yes Scotland employed 17 people full-time. In March 2013, a number of Yes Scotland activists promoted the movement at
bedroom tax protests throughout Scotland.
Finances Yes Scotland first disclosed its finances in April 2013, revealing it had taken over £1.6m in donations. In July 2013, the
Sunday Herald reported that there were "persistent rumours" of funding problems within Yes Scotland, and suggested that these were related to Jacqueline Caldwell and Susan Stewart leaving the campaign organisation. The organisation "shared out" the women's responsibilities between other employees instead of replacing them.
Campaigning Throughout 2013, Yes Scotland launched specially targeted campaign groups like
Veterans for Independence,
Farming for Yes, and
Crofters for Yes. In August 2013, the chief executive of
Better Together, Blair MacDougall, accused figures within Yes Scotland of "copy[ing]" his campaign's slogan "best of both worlds" to "reassure voters over independence". In response, a senior
SNP source said that "It's arrogant of the No campaign to claim ownership of language." Later in August, Yes Scotland filed a police complaint that its internal emails had been accessed illegitimately. Details of the particular email that was accessed were not initially released, but it was later revealed to be correspondence with Elliot Bulmer in connection with an article he wrote for the
Herald in July,
A Scottish constitution to serve the commonweal. Their campaign opponents, Better Together, accused Yes Scotland of "secretly paying off supposedly impartial experts" and urged an inquiry, as Bulmer is research director of the Constitutional Commission, a registered charity which states that it has no political alignment. Yes Scotland said the payment was a "nominal fee for the considerable time and effort [Bulmer] spent" on the piece, and its content was not influenced. Then, the
Telegraph reported that
Police Scotland were opening a hacking inquiry in response to a complaint received from the campaign about internal emails that appeared to have been accessed illegitimately and leaked to the media. At the end of 2014, chief executive Blair Jenkins sent a message to supporters to join the Scottish National Party, the Scottish Greens or the Scottish Socialist Party to ensure that campaigners "keep the spirit alive". By that point, many of the
social media groups previously using the 'Yes' term had switched to using 'the 45%' or variations thereon, basing the new name on the percentage of votes for their side in the referendum. ==Participation==