Scots will win independence referendum, even with a no vote

By The Canberra Times
Updated April 23 2018 - 8:45pm, first published September 16 2014 - 7:04pm

The referendum on Scottish independence on Thursday is too close to call, according to the latest opinion polls. After months in which the Yes camp has trailed the pro-unionists, the narrowing of the contest has led to some extraordinary pleas and concessions in past weeks, interspersed with ominous warnings of the consequences for Scotland of full-scale independence. The most impassioned of these have been from David Cameron. In a speech in Edinburgh last week, the British Prime Minister spoke of the "heartbreak" he would feel if Scotland voted for independence, and pleaded with his audience not to break up the union just to give the "effing Tories a kick", and on Monday, he warned a vote for independence would not be a vote for a "trial separation" but for a "painful divorce". Given Mr Cameron's leadership of the Conservative Party could be rendered untenable in the event of a Yes vote by virtue of his having agreed to demands for a referendum in the first place, such emotion-charged observations are unsurprising. Even the Queen, by nature a stickler for the convention that the head of state exercise strict impartiality in all political matters, has discreetly expressed the hope that "people will think very carefully about the future".

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