Scottish National Party
2014 - Present
Scottish National Party
Shortly after the independence referendum of 2014 I was recruited by the brilliant team at Scottish National Party HQ as Head of Digital.
In November 2014, Nicola Sturgeon became First Minister and I helped to organise and stage manage a rally at Glasgow's SSE Hydro. It was the largest indoor political event in British history with around 12,000 attendees.
The SNP's membership reached over 110,000 by March 2015, an increase of over 80,000 in under 6 months. 1 in 34 people of voting age in Scotland are now members.
In May 2015, we won 56 of Scotland's 59 Westminster seats, an absolute majority and 50 seat gain, 4,255 votes away from winning every seat in Scotland.
In October 2015, I launched the new SNP website and campaigning platform in preparation for the Scottish Parliament election. Within a little over a month it reached 1 million page views.
In May 2016, we won a historic third term in government at the Scottish Elections. The SNP surpassed its 2011 constituency vote share and achieved the largest ever popular vote in Scottish history at 1,059,897. It was also the first time that any party in Scotland had received over 1 million votes.
In September 2016, we launched The National Survey, the biggest listening exercise in the the SNP's history.
In the 3 years period between 2015 and 2017, the SNP won 4 national elections and helped to achieve an overwhelming majority remain vote in Scotland during the EU Referendum.
A survey in January 2018, of the UK’s political party members by Queen Mary University London found that SNP members have the highest satisfaction rates out of any UK political party.
In October 2018, the SNP overtook the Conservatives to become the second largest political party in the UK, with around 125,482 members. 3% of the Scottish electorate are now members of the party. And based on the UK electorate (2017), if a UK-wide party had the same proportion of the electorate as the SNP, it would have around 1,384,440 members. This is 2.5 times the size of the UK Labour Party.
In the same year, I directed Golden Globe winning actor Brian Cox in our Christmas special campaign film.
In 2019, we won the UK General Election in Scotland with a landslide 45% vote share. Taking 7 seats from the Scottish Tories, who stated that ‘the union was on the ballot paper’. Our election campaign cost 81p per vote, the best value out of any UK political party.
In the same year, I directed the actor Alan Cumming in our Christmas special pro-independence campaign film.
That year, I also launched the Yes campaigning platform in preparation for a future referendum on Scottish independence. To date, over half a million people have pledged their support for Scottish independence.
In 2020, support for independence polled at its highest ever level at 58% in an Ipsos Mori poll, with every age demographic below 64 years old showing majority support.
In 2021, I wrote, directed and produced the SNP’s online Get Out The Vote rally, hosted by Alan Cumming and Mhairi Black, and featuring Brian Cox, Val McDermid, Martin Compston, Elaine C. Smith, Stuart Braithwaite (Mogwai), Iona Fyfe and more.
We won a landslide Scottish election victory, breaking electoral records along the way. We secured the highest number of votes ever, highest number of constituency seats ever and highest vote share ever in a Scottish election.
Securing a mandate for an independence referendum for Scotland.
Analysis by The Herald also indicated that our digital campaign achieved the highest success with the lowest spend on Facebook ads, compared to other parties. The SNP spent £59,299, equalling £926 per seat won. Scottish Labour Party spent £187,809, equalling £8,537 per seat won - this total being 3 times as much as the SNP spent.