THE uncertainty caused by the referendum is damaging investment in Scotland... Saving lives transcends borders... Young people today don't even understand the concept of borders...

Does any of that sound familiar?

These are not old quotes from a mildewed Better Together press release retrieved from under my desk.

The statements were all made this week by senior figures in the new campaign to persuade Scots to vote to stay in the EU in the forthcoming referendum.

Jayne-Anne Gadhia, the chief executive of Edinburgh-based Virgin Money said US investment was probably already bypassing Scotland and the UK because of uncertainty over the vote.

Professor Sir Harry Burns, the former Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, spoke of the life-saving impact of EU regulations on air and water quality.

"That is something that transcends borders and to disentangle ourselves from all these treaties would be awful," he said.

Another campaign board member, business consultant Matthew Anderson, said his daughters belonged to a generation which had no concept of borders. "We should be progressing towards a borderless society," he declared.

Scotland Stronger In Europe is part of Britain Stronger In Europe, the UK-wide group that looks set to become the officially designated main "In" campaign in the referendum.

It's not Better Together but, at times, it sure sounded like it. And inevitably, the response from Leave.EU, one of the leading 'Out' campaigns, had a bit of a Yes Scotland ring to it.

"Laughable scare stories," said Scottish spokesman Jack Montgomery, who accused the In camp of having "no faith in how strong Scotland can be once released from the Brussels straitjacket".

"Culturally and geographically Scotland will always be in Europe," he said, reassuringly. "But outside the political EU we can shape our own laws and manage our own affairs to a much greater extent, whether through a devolved or an independent Scottish parliament."

So a good dose of deja vu attended the launch of "Stronger In," as it hopes to become known, on Wednesday. A somewhat topsy-turvy deja vu, it must be said, for journalists whose papers had backed No in the independence referendum and are now flying the flag for Out. "But... an independent UK could be a perfectly successful country," you could almost hear them thinking.

The parallels with 2014 are striking. But Scotland Stronger In Europe is keen to play down any similarities with the independence referendum.

Indeed, the main message from the launch was a simple one: We're not Better Together. We'll be upbeat, they promised. We'll be positive. We're Project Cheer not Project Fear.

Even the launch, in a windowless downstairs room at the Our Dynamic Earth attraction in Edinburgh, was very un-indyref.

If you were expecting a Yes Scotland-style celebrity sing-along, you'd have been sorely disappointed. Low key to the point of invisible, a few discreet "I'm In" stickers were as exciting as it got. Later, none of the advisory board members was made available to put the In case on BBC Scotland's Scotland 2016 programme, so an item on the EU referendum was dropped.

The campaign is also conspicuously un-political. Indyref veterans from both sides are there in the background, but the group will be fronted by academics, business people and representatives of civic Scotland.

There are reasons for this. Both chairwoman Mona Siddique and spokesman John Edward remarked that referendums can be divisive. They also said they favoured a short campaign, brushing aside SNP concerns that a June referendum would interfere with, and even be disrespectful towards, the Holyrood election on May 5.

Scotland Stronger In Europe is clearly keen to avoid the EU referendum becoming anything like a repeat of the huge battle over independence two years ago.

Why wouldn't it? On the day of the launch, an Ipsos Mori poll for STV showed a huge lead for the In campaign, with 62 per cent of Scots wanting to stay in the EU, 26 per cent wanting to leave and 12 per cent unsure. A big chunk of those 'Out' supporters are SNP voters who, after the Tories, are the most Eurosceptic group by party affiliation. There is a nagging fear their number will swell if the In campaign looks and sounds anything like Better Together.

Safe, steady and little bit understated, then, might be a sensible strategy for Scotland Stronger In Europe.