Pro-Union supporters clash with pro-Independence supporters in George Square, Glasgow, on Thursday, during a referendum on Scottish independence. Photo: ANDY BUCHANAN/AFP/Getty Images EDINBURGH — A funereal fog cloaked the Scottish capital Thursday, but nothing could not dampen the ardour of Edinburghers to have their say about Scotland’s future.
Scots turned out in huge numbers to cast ballots in a referendum on whether the rugged, resource-rich northern rim of the British Isles should stick with the United Kingdom or go its own way.
“Should Scotland be an independent country?” was the simple query voters had to answer.
Those words elicited sharply contrasting opinions among a few of the 4.3-million registered voters outside a polling station tucked under the misty Salisbury Crags and within a few minutes walk of the Scottish Parliament Building and Queen Elizabeth’s Holyrood Palace.
City councillor and Yes campaigner Jim Orr said Scots like him were fed up with “the London parties” and wanted to take political power in their own hands.
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“It is time,” said Jim Orr, an independent Edinburgh councillor who lives in the area, as he handed out Yes stickers to people as they walked by. “This used to be a staunchly Labour place. But no more. People don’t want the London parties anymore.”
“No more Tories and no more Thatcherism. Everyone will vote Yes,” another man shouted after he and his three generations of his family came to vote.
Care worker Katherine McTighe disagreed strongly. Standing among a clutch of Yes supporters on the stairs of the Braidwood polling station she declared that she was “a No because I do not think Scotland can go it alone. If it is a Yes, I think we will be left with nothing.”
“I am sick of all this talk about ‘Scotland the Brave,’ ” said Katherine McTighe, who rejected independence when she voted in Thursday’s referendum on Scotland’s political future.(MATTHEW FISHER/Postmedia News)
Polls opened at 7 a.m. and were to close at 10 p.m. However, the race is thought to be so close, with a turnout so big, that tabulating the final result may take until dawn Friday (about 2 a.m. EDT), or even later, if there are calls for a recount in any of the 32 voting districts.
“Accuracy, not speed,” has been the mantra from those who will announce the results as they become known in each district.
The cities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee — which in total have more than one third of the electorate — are expected to report their results last.
A flurry of recent polls has indicated that the No side has stunned even itself by overcoming a 20 per cent Yes lead since July.
However, most polling firms put those who favour remaining with Great Britain between two and four points ahead in surveys conducted over this past weekend and early this week.
Travelling around Scotland you could be forgiven for thinking the Yes side was poised to win a landslide victory. Gauging voter intentions has been problematic because Yes organizers, with their placards and stickers, and leader Alex Salmond have seemed to be everywhere.
Adding to the Yes campaign’s sense of momentum, the separatists have appropriated for themselves Scotland’s blue and white colours as well as St. Andrew’s flag.
The No campaign may have been virtually invisible because it had been so far ahead in the polls for so long. But that has changed during the past few days after a who’s who of national politicians finally figured out Great Britain was in peril and rushed north to make passionate speeches about why the kingdom must remain united.
The No campaign hasn’t been well organized, Cameron Rose said.
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“I am sick of all this talk about ‘Scotland the Brave’ and all that sh–e,” McTighe said, adding that nobody could intimidate her. But a moment later she confessed she had “not put a No sign up in my window because something might come through it.”
Such threats had been grossly exaggerated, Orr said, an opinion echoed by the Scottish police. Nevertheless, more than a few voters on both sides of the referendum chasm have wondered aloud whether the Yes side, which has become cocky about its chances, might cause trouble if its dream fails for want of a couple of thousand votes.
“The No campaign has not been well organized,” said Cameron Rose, a Tory city councillor who sported a pin with the Scottish flag and the Union Jack on his lapel.
“Three political parties are involved and it has not been easy.
Stanley Reilly was predicting a very close result in the Scottish referendum.
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“I hope the Yes campaign has overreached themselves a bit with their rhetoric. The characteristics of the Yes campaign are balloons, razzmatazz and yes, some intimidation.”
Asked about the shocking absence of signs proclaiming support for Scotland’s union with the United Kingdom even on referendum day, Yes supporter Stanley Reilly said jokingly, “They’re a bit shy, you see. They won’t even speak about it.”
But even Reilly, who worked as a photographer for 35 years in London, was uneasy about how things might turn out. “Much as I want independence, I don’t think we’ll get it,” he said. “But it will be close.”
After Reilly spoke a man whose identity papers showed that his name really was Elvis Presley, hobbled by on his way to cast his ballot.
“I’m Scottish but British also and I wish to remain Scottish British,” Presley said. “I haven’t voted on anything in 27 years but I am here today because I felt I had to.”
At a nearby swimming pool a brief but spirited discussion took place between male and female octogenarians who did not know each other. The man said that against his better judgment he had voted Yes because that was what his grandchildren were doing and he wanted to do this for them. The woman, who was holding her own grandson in her arms, tersely replied, “I voted for my grandson’s future and I voted No.”
Sensing the drama of the moment, and the seismic eruptions it had triggered across the British Isles and among the Scottish diaspora in the New World, Australia and New Zealand, Matthew Thompson, who works in a fitness club, said that before he voted he had held his breath for about 30 seconds.
“I had to decide between my heart and my head,’ Thompson said. “And my head won.”
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