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Cameron heads north in last-ditch bid to stop Scottish independence
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UK Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday implored Scotland not to vote for independence in next week’s referendum following opinion polls showing a surge in support for a breakaway.
Cameron pledged to do all he could to keep the UK together and said he was heading north today to join the fray.
“In the end, it is for the Scottish people to decide, but I want them to know that the rest of the United Kingdom — and I speak as prime minister — want them to stay.”
Cameron’s move made clear that the break-up of the UK was now a distinct possibility. His spokesman said Scotland’s blue and white flag would be flown over Cameron’s London residence in Downing Street until the vote next week.
Meanwhile, nationalist leader Alex Salmond said in Edinburgh that a TNS opinion poll yesterday showed the campaign opposing independence had “fallen apart at the seams.”
The poll showed the referendum due on September 18 was now “too close to call,” TNS head Tom Costley said.
The number of people saying they would vote “No” to independence dropped to 39 percent, down from 45 percent a month ago. “Yes” support was slightly behind at 38 percent but had made a dramatic surge from 32 percent a month ago.
This followed a YouGov poll in the Sunday Times that put the pro-independence camp slightly ahead for the first time.
Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, was delighted by the latest poll.
“I think this is a very significant day in the referendum campaign. This is the day that the “No” campaign finally fell apart at the seams,” he told reporters.
He was speaking at an event with European supporters of Scottish independence, who posed on the steps of St Giles Church on Edinburgh’s historic Royal Mile holding signs saying “Yes” in a variety of European languages.
Whether an independent Scotland would be allowed to remain a member of the European Union, as the independence movement wishes, has been a huge bone of contention.
Several prominent European politicians have said it would be impossible and Spain, which fears Scottish independence would boost separatist movements in the Basque Country and Catalonia, is opposed.
But a former president of the European parliament, Ireland’s Pat Cox, said in the Scotsman newspaper that the EU was unlikely to send Scotland to the back of the queue for membership.
The leaders in Scotland of Britain’s main three parties said they had agreed to a timetable for a process handing the Scottish parliament in Holyrood more power after a “No” victory, including over welfare and income tax.
This would start immediately after the referendum, leading to publication of draft legislation on January 25, 2015, with passage after the 2015 general election. The parties’ exact plans differed in detail, they said in a statement.
“The Scottish people now have real certainty that a ‘No’ vote is a vote for change and the uncertainty lies with the ‘Yes’ campaign, who have no answers on currency, pensions and jobs,” said the leader of Scottish Labour, Johann Lamont.
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson and Liberal Democrat Willie Rennie stood with Lamont as she made the announcement.
The previous evening, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had made an impassioned appeal to Labour Party supporters in central Scotland in support of staying together as he outlined a plan to give the Scottish Parliament more power.
Salmond said it was “a-back-of-the-envelope non-plan”.
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