The phrase was coined by Rob Shorthouse, who was the Better Together campaign's director of communications during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum and first appeared in Scotland's Herald newspaper in 2013.
Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond used it to taunt unionist campaigner Alistair Darling during a televised debate.
'"[10] Others, such as London mayor Sadiq Khan, stated that the Leave side had also been scaremongering with false claims of imminent Turkish accession to the EU.
[11][12] In late September 2020, Conservative MP Desmond Swayne used the term "Project Fear" when dismissing a COVID-19 presentation by government scientists Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance, in which they warned of 50,000 cases per day by mid-October unless urgent action was taken.
[14][nb 1] In May 2021, Conservative MP Steve Baker described the UK's target for cutting its annual emissions of greenhouse gases to net zero by 2050 as "Project Fear" following his appointment as a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a lobby group that opposes climate change legislation.