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 Leaders and supporters of both sides took to the streets for a
final day of campaigning in a country gripped by excitement and
hope, balanced by a good measure of dread and concern.
Voters will be asked on Thursday to answer "Yes" or "No" to the
question: "Should Scotland be an independent country?". A "Yes" vote
would spell the end of the 307-year-old union with England and the
break-up of the United Kingdom, as well as a period of economic
uncertainty.
Three surveys - from pollsters ICM, Opinium and Survation - showed
support for independence at 48 percent compared with 52 percent
backing for the union. They found 8 to 14 percent of Scotland's 4.3
million voters were still undecided before polls open at 0600 GMT on
Thursday.
British political leaders have promised greater autonomy for
Scotland if people decide to stay with the union. But independence
supporters say it is time for Scotland to make its own decisions
free of rule by a London elite.
Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, who has led the independence
campaign, urged Scots: "Wake up on Friday morning to the first day
of a better country."
In an open letter to voters, Salmond said Scotland's future was in
their hands. Invoking 18th century economist Adam Smith and
Scotland's greatest poet Robert Burns, he said: "Don't let this
opportunity slip through our fingers. Don't let them tell us we
can't. Let's do this."
British Prime Minister David Cameron told the Times newspaper he
always thought the contest would be tightly fought. "Whatever the
result, we are a democracy. You have to respect the expression of
people through the ballot box," he said in an interview.
Cameron has visited Scotland twice in the past week to appeal for it
to stay in the United Kingdom's "family of nations". But he is
unpopular north of the border, often dismissed as the epitome of a
disdainful upper-class Englishman.
In the Times, Cameron defended his decision to agree to the vote and
to stick to a straightforward "Yes" or "No" choice, rather than
including a third option of more powers for Scotland within the
United Kingdom.
Asked if he woke up in the night sweating over the possibility of
defeat, he replied: "Of course."
All three polls showed nationalists had gained ground but the fact
that supporters of the union were ahead prompted investors to buy
the pound, extending sterling's gain against the dollar.
"It is very tight," John Curtice, professor of politics at
Strathclyde University, told the Scotsman newspaper.
"At the moment it looks as if the 'Yes' campaign is going to fall
agonizingly short from their perspective. But I have always said
this is the 'No' campaign’s to lose and it certainly looks as if
they have got pretty close to that."
The momentum gained by the "Yes" campaign in the past few months
panicked the British establishment. Banks, businesses and investment
houses weighed in to predict doom if Scotland broke away, including
job losses, rising prices and a capital exodus.
The question of which currency an independent Scotland would use has
so far gone unanswered. British political leaders have dismissed
Salmond's contention that Edinburgh and London could agree on a
currency union under which Scotland keeps sterling.
Pro-union campaigners highlighted official figures on Wednesday
which showed employment in Scotland had risen 45,000 in the three
months to July, as an example of the United Kingdom being better off
together.
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"We should follow the evidence and vote 'No Thanks' as the only way
to make sure we keep creating jobs in Scotland. Not voting, or
voting 'Yes' will send our country down the high risk road to
irreversible separation and economic disaster," said Danny
Alexander, a Scot who sits in the Westminster parliament and is a
senior minister in Britain's finance ministry. LENGTHY TALKS
The Scottish edition of the Sun newspaper declined on Wednesday to
take sides. As Scotland's best-selling daily, its stand had been
eagerly awaited but it said in an editorial simply that it believed
in the people of Scotland to make the right decision.
In an open letter, 14 former chiefs of the British Army, Royal Navy
and Royal Air Force warned that a vote for independence would
undermine defense in both Scotland and the United Kingdom.
"It is fiction to talk about regional Armed Forces ... The division
of the UK may or may not be politically or economically sensible,
but in military terms we are clear: it will weaken us all," they
wrote.
If Scots vote for independence, Britain and Scotland would face
lengthy negotiations over everything from sharing North Sea oil tax
revenue and a future currency to European Union membership and
Britain's main nuclear submarine base which Salmond's Scottish
National Party wants out of the country.
The prospect of breaking up the United Kingdom, the world's
sixth-largest economy and a veto-wielding permanent member of the
United Nations Security Council, has prompted citizens and allies
alike to ponder what would be left.
The White House said it would prefer the United Kingdom to remain
"strong, robust and united".
In the face of the biggest internal threat to the United Kingdom
since much of Ireland broke away nearly a century ago, the leaders
of Britain's three main political parties have promised to devolve
more powers to Scotland if it stays. In a deal brokered by former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a
Scot who has emerged as the "No" campaign's most compelling
advocate, they said they would retain the funding equation that
sustains a higher level of public spending north of the border.
British leaders accept that even if Scotland votes to keep the
union, the United Kingdom's structure will have to change as the
rush to grant so many powers to Scotland will provoke calls for a
less centralized state from voters in England, Wales and Northern
Ireland.
Swathes of former industrial heartlands of northern England and
Wales depend on state spending while some English lawmakers in
Cameron's own party have already asked for England to be given more
powers.
(editing by David Stamp)
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