Former British prime minister and No campaigner for the Scottish independence referendum Gordon Brown, a native Scot, delivers a speech in Glasgow, the country’s largest city, on Wednesday Photo: Matt Dunham/The Associated Press EDINBURGH, Scotland — The timing of Thursday’s milestone referendum on Scotland’s future could not have been more fortuitous for those Scots who wish to quit the United Kingdom.
The vote occurs only two months after the Glasgow Commonwealth Games demonstrated what Scots are capable of on the world stage. The Games were an artistic and sporting triumph as well as a handy excuse for proud Scots to drape themselves in the blue and white colours of St. Andrew, which they did constantly and with abandon for several weeks.
It has also been the separatists’ good luck that Prime Minister David Cameron’s government spent the summer obsessing over how to respond to the rise of the Islamic State, formerly known as ISIL or ISIS, in Iraq and Syria, and by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s push to seize Crimea and otherwise destabilize Ukraine.
Cameron and others at Westminster showed almost no interest in the existential political drama in Scotland until two weeks ago when there was great alarm at polls which showed that over the summer separatist support had jumped about 20 points, putting the two sides in a virtual dead heat.
The latest poll, published Wednesday by the pro-union Scotsman showed the same trend. Support for secession has continued to creep up in recent days.
Yes supporters have become so confident of victory that there could be a dramatic reaction if they fall just short of their dream. A foretaste of this may have been provided Tuesday when British Labour leader Ed Miliband was heckled and harassed as he tried but was not allowed to make the case for a united Britain at an Edinburgh shopping centre.
Still, as many here have paused to note, the occasional nastiness that has occurred during the long referendum campaign is nothing compared to how Scots settled their disputes in the distant past by clubbing each other to death or lopping each other’s heads off.
An astonishing 97 per cent of the more than 4.2 million eligible Scottish residents have registered to vote. In a controversial attempt to be as inclusive as possible, Scotland’s parliament changed the law so that everyone 16 and over could participate.
Guesses about the likely voter turnout on Thursday range from 85 to 90 per cent. Such a throng would almost be unprecedented in a modern democracy except in countries where, by law, every adult must vote.
With most Scots eager to cast their ballots — and the margin of victory likely to be thin — it is expected to take much of the night to do the counting. Polls close Thursday at 10 p.m. local time (5 p.m. ET). Results from the 32 electoral districts are to be announced as they become available.
The earliest election officials expect to declare the winner is about 3 a.m. local time (10 p.m. ET). But it is also possible that Scotland and Britain will only know their destiny sometime around breakfast on Friday.
As for the morning after the morning if Scotland chooses to secede from the United Kingdom, the easiest part is that Scotland would henceforth set its own tax regime and collect all the taxes owed, including those that come from North Sea oil. As it is now, Scots must wait for Westminster to decide what their share is of the tax pie that is collected nationally.
Will Scottish blue remain on the Union Jack and will British embassies still represent Scottish citizens and Scottish interests in parts of the world such as Mozambique and Myanmar where Scotland is unlikely to send diplomats?
There is also the explosive question of which country gets what warships and fighter and transport aircraft and what would be the status of Scotland’s storied infantry regiments and of Britain’s nuclear weapons? Every one of those nukes is stored at Her Majesty’s Royal Naval Base, Clyde, which is only 40 kilometres from Glasgow.
As always in any divorce, the most bitter disputes will involve money. What will be the future of the pound, which the separatists still want to use and to which the Bank of England is opposed? Could there continue to be a currency union with what’s left of Britain even though Scots would no longer have a say in British monetary policy? And how will it be possible to fairly apportion nearly $3 trillion in national debt that has been described as Britain’s black hole?
But a No vote will change the United Kingdom forever, too. A “vow” signed this week by Prime Minister David Cameron and the Labour and Liberal Democrat leaders in London to devolve significant economic and political powers to Scotland will have to be kept. As is being much discussed already by commentators, Scotland’s referendum will inevitably lead other parts of the union, including Northern Ireland, Wales, and even Yorkshire and Lancashire, to demand what Britons have taken to calling “devo max.”
Whatever result Thursday’s referendum drama produces, the domestic squabbling of this once mighty nation has only just begun.
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