Scottish independence referendum ‘a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’

Scottish first minister Alex Salmond said he expected the Yes campaign to win a “substantial majority” in Thursday’s vote on separation from the United Kingdom.

Alistair Darling, centre, the leader of the campaign to keep Scotland part of the United Kingdom, and Scottish first minister Alex Salmond, right, watch as Andrew Marr prepares to toss a coin on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show in Edinburgh. Jeff Overs / BBC / Handout via Reuters
Powered by automated translation

London // Scotland’s independence referendum could be a once-in-lifetime opportunity to break away from the United Kingdom, its pro-independence leader warned on Sunday.

Scottish first minister Alex Salmond said he expected the Yes campaign to win a “substantial majority” in Thursday’s vote.

However, if the majority chose to stay with the UK he would not ask Scots to vote again, Mr Salmond said in a BBC interview, describing the referendum as a “once-in-a-generation, perhaps even a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Scotland”.

The referendum campaign burst into life eight days ago after a long, low-key build-up when, for the first time, an opinion poll found a narrow majority of Yes supporters, prompting Britain’s main political parties to launch a late charm offensive to persuade Scots not to end a union spanning more than 300 years.

Subsequent surveys of voting intentions have been mixed, failing to shake the separatists’ new-found buoyancy or restore the previous confidence of the anti-independence camp.

A Survation poll on Saturday showed the No camp at 47 per cent and the Yes at 40.8 per cent, with 9 per cent undecided and 3.2 per cent unwilling to say.

An Opinium survey for Sunday’s Observer newspaper put No at 47.7 per cent and Yes at 42.3 per cent, with 10 per cent not voting or not sure if they would.

An ICM online poll for the Sunday Telegraph placed the pro-independence campaign at 49 per cent and the pro-UK at 42 per cent with 9 per cent undecided, although a pollster warned the sample size was too small.

The British prime minister, David Cameron, his coalition deputy Nick Clegg, from the Liberal Democrats, and the opposition leader Ed Miliband have all beaten paths to Scotland to urge voters to reject the partial break-up of the United Kingdom.

Lurid headlines have portrayed the British queen, Elizabeth II, as fearing a Yes outcome. Speculation about the monarch’s supposed concern has continued despite a statement from Buckingham Palace, stressing that she was “above politics” and regarded the referendum as “a matter for the people of Scotland”.

Yet at stake in the vote are not just royal sensibilities and the fate of formal ties dating from the passing of the Treaty of the Union in 1706, followed the next year by acts of union creating the UK. Serious question marks have also been raised about economic and political implications.

In his visit to Edinburgh, Mr Cameron said he would be “heartbroken if this family of nations that we’ve put together – and we’ve done such amazing things together – was torn apart”.

Mr Miliband spoke of the case for preserving the union coming from “head, heart and soul”.

He might have added that, in his case, it also comes from a desire to make his Labour party electable in the foreseeable future. The loss of Scottish support for the left could produce Tory dominance at Westminster for generations.

Kevin Maguire, one of Britain’s best known Labour-supporting commentators, admits Labour would pay a heavy price for a Yes victory. But he criticises last-ditch promises of greater autonomous powers for Scotland, saying this may “feed rather than slay the separatist beast”.

English political leaders are not always viewed warmly in Scotland, especially if seen to be meddling in Scottish affairs. A former Labour deputy prime minister, John Prescott, said Mr Cameron’s visit was probably a “hindrance”.

Unionists have seized on authoritative rejections of nationalists’ claims that an independent Scotland would flourish because of its North Sea reserves of oil and gas.

Alex Brummer, business editor of the anti-Cameron but pro-Conservative Daily Mail, identifies what he calls the “biggest lie” of Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister and leader of the Yes campaign. Independent research, Brummer says, exposes as fantasy the idea that an independent Scotland could “float onward and upward on the strength its oil and gas resources”.

In reality, the evidence is inconclusive. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), an advisory body created by government but tasked with producing “independent” analysis, projects Scottish energy receipts averaging about 0.06 per cent of Britain’s gross domestic product between 2019 and 2041, only a fifth of the 2013-14 level. Expected revenues over this period would total £39 billion (Dh232bn) on OBR projections, £12bn down on its own estimate last year.

“Our projections suggests that North Sea oil and gas receipts will remain a valuable fiscal resource for many years to come,” wrote OBR’s chairman, Robert Chote. “But they are highly volatile from year to year, which makes near-term forecasting very difficult. And while it is clear that the long-term trend in receipts is downward, the pace of that decline – and the amount that can be collected as it happens – is highly uncertain and very sensitive to the path of production and prices.”

But in answer to questions from The National, Stuart McDonald, a Yes Scotland spokesman, insisted the evidence points to Scotland as a prosperous independent country, as high as the world’s 14th wealthiest.

“Even anti-independence politicians like David Cameron cannot deny that Scotland would be a successful independent country,” he said. “We are brimming with talent and resources – and the idea that we could not prosper is pure fantasy.”

But some businesses with long-established roots in Scotland, including the insurance group Standard Life and even the Royal Bank of Scotland, plan to move head offices to England in the event of a Yes vote.

And there is deep uncertainty on currency. Yes campaigners claim even “panicked ministers of the deeply unpopular government in London” now accept that currency union – Scotland keeping the pound sterling – makes sense. Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, says flatly that this would be “incompatible with sovereignty”.

Yes campaigners regard questions about future relations with the royal family as a red herring. “Her Majesty will continue to be queen of Scots,” said Mr McDonald. “It is sad that the No campaign felt it necessary to try and involve her in the debate.”

The fluctuating opinion poll findings suggest a close vote.

More than four million electors, including foreigners resident in Scotand, are eligible to answer the simple question: “Should Scotland be an independent country?” A turnout exceeding 80 per cent has been widely predicted.

Some unionists now question the wisdom of the question’s bluntness, when it might have been more sensible to offer the “devo max” option of greater devolved powers.

Mr Cameron, who is scheduled to return to Scotland again on Monday, has indicated he will not regard a Yes vote as a reason to resign. But amid the anger and recriminations that would ensue, the future of his Conservative leadership could well lie outside his hands.

foreign.desk@thenational.ae