EDINBURGH, June 25 (RIA Novosti) Mark Hirst - A former Labor First Minister of Scotland told RIA Novosti Wednesday that «time is running out» for the pro-UK campaign and accused the Better Together leadership of «miscalculating the mood of the Scottish people."
«Westminster has totally miscalculated the mood of the Scottish people and the progress Scotland has made in the post devolution years," Henry McLeish said.
«Scotland has a real choice in this referendum but sadly Unionist MPs, especially Labour and the Conservatives, just don't get it," he elaborated.
McLeish said, «The better together campaign has been relentlessly negative and is losing votes to the Yes campaign."
«There is no vision being put forward," according to the former minister, «The no campaign seems content with selling the past, offering a series of threats and seems incapable of being both passionate Scots and practical unionists."
McLeish, who supports Scotland's continued membership of the UK, told RIA Novosti, «It is the Union that requires a shake up and many people feel a union in decline is not the best idea for investing your future."
«Time is running out and the prospects for a shift in strategy are not good," McLeish added.
Henry McLeish became First Minister of Scotland in 2000 and is a former leader of the Scottish Labour Party at the Scottish Parliament.
His comments come after another former Labour First Minister, Lord Jack McConnell, told the House of Lords that the Better Together campaign needed to «raise their game».
McConnell, who also opposes Scottish independence, told the Lords that the pro-UK side needed to, «outline a positive vision for the future of Scotland inside the UK, not campaigning to protect the Union and the established order, but campaigning for what is the new order, a reformed UK with a new Scotland active and participating within it."
McLeish told RIA Novosti, «I would certainly agree with Jack's comments."
