Will Scotland Leave the UK?

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Chris

Votes on cessation are held within the territory that would cecede. That's a pretty widely followed international convention.

The referendum is not about ending the united kingdom, it is about Scotland departing from it. If the other home nations had a vote, you could end up with a situation where Scottish voters opt to stay in the union, but voters elsewhere vote to chuck Scotland out. That would clearly be unfair, not least because there are about 12 times as many voters outside Scotland as there are within it.

If you would like England to end its relationship with Scotland, then you will just have to do what the Scottish nationalists have done. Found a separatist political party for England, then spend the next 75 years campaigning on it. Good luck with that.

It's not just mark, there's a growing number of English.questioning what we get out of union, so much so the snp would be better of campaigning down here

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...h-independence

Well, there are only so many ways the SNP can say "we don't hate the English" before going on to slag off every aspect of national life south of the border, before people start thinking they might be telling porkies.

For what it's worth, the anger and intolerance that filters across the border is coming from a loud minority, which I am confident will become clear once the referendum votes are counted.

Originally Posted by Chris

Your super soaraway Sun has a new poll.

55% NO
35% YES
10% DK

Excluding DK, that's 61-38 in favour of No. A 22-point lead. Ouch.

(Yougov)

Paywall linkage: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...ependence.html

Pretty much static from their last poll although some of the work was done before the debate. Survation had a +4 swing to No which was encouraging especially since they're one of the more Yes-friendly pollsters.

Personally I think the final outcome will be in the 60-40 ballpark, so if YouGov is static at that magnitude of lead for No, I'm a happy bunny.

Yes has all the ground to make up over the next month and a bit and, in the absence of what the anoraks call a "black swan event", it's difficult to see how they're going to do it.

Originally Posted by Chris

Personally I think the final outcome will be in the 60-40 ballpark, so if YouGov is static at that magnitude of lead for No, I'm a happy bunny.

Yes has all the ground to make up over the next month and a bit and, in the absence of what the anoraks call a "black swan event", it's difficult to see how they're going to do it.

The only worry is a fundamental flaw in the way they're weighting/sampling voters. The fact there seems to be a wide discrepancy in the pollsters' numbers does feed that fear to a slight extent although it's quite unlikely.

Thankfully there are a lot of pollsters working on this and Survation and Panelbase, at least, seem to be running with a slightly different methodology.

The big question seems to be over how the voting pattern will differ from 2011. But however you weight it, No is in the lead and always has been.

---------- Post added at 10:16 ---------- Previous post was at 10:13 ----------

John Curtice has some useful analysis:

http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2...teady-but-low/

Originally Posted by Chris

Thankfully there are a lot of pollsters working on this and Survation and Panelbase, at least, seem to be running with a slightly different methodology.

The big question seems to be over how the voting pattern will differ from 2011. But however you weight it, No is in the lead and always has been.

It is. My only concern is a perfect storm of the polls underestimating the yes vote, Yes building up momentum in the final weeks, and a turnout difference. It's the worst case scenario admittedly but just want to be sure it's done.

[Mr Pharmacist]

Why on earth did the Yes bus go to Liverpool!?

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Damien

Why on earth did the Yes bus go to Liverpool!?

[Stephen]

Have had to laugh at my friends trying to hijack some of my shared BT posts with Yes gibberish. They actuallysound like Salmond. Chris will testify this. Nonsense posts rubbishing claims and yet no actual facts to back it up with.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Stephen

Have had to laugh at my friends trying to hijack some of my shared BT posts with Yes gibberish. They actuallysound like Salmond. Chris will testify this. Nonsense posts rubbishing claims and yet no actual facts to back it up with.

Well they've been taught well by the master of the art - Bravemouth. He's been making it up as he goes along for years and some folks only like hearing what they want to hear.

I've just posted a fairly lengthy explanation of the Eurozone crisis on your page, Stephen.

[Stephen]

I noticed.

Blinded by the dark side, they have become.

[Derek]

A change in tactic in recent days from the yessers, ironically after slating the no camp for being scaremongering and negative the latest attempt to woo voter is saying remaining in the UK will involves destruction of the NHS (a devolved issue already), massive reductions in Police numbers (a devolved issue already) so unless Westminster is going to remove powers from Holyrood they are telling porkies.

Also there has been more bullying from the Australian PM.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...itics-28814936

The Australian PM has warned against Scottish independence, saying it is "hard to see how the world would be helped by an independent Scotland".

Those who would like to see the UK break up were "not the friends of justice... [or] freedom", Tony Abbott told the Times while visiting London.

He said the nations who would "cheer" the prospect were "not the countries whose company one would like to keep".