Rise of the ayes

FOR once the hyperbolic phrase holds true: the stakes could not be much higher. On September 10th David Cameron, the Conservative prime minister, Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party, and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats rushed to Scotland in a desperate and possibly doomed effort to save the United Kingdom. If Scots vote for independence on September 18th, as opinion polls suggest they may, it will be the end of the union. If they vote against it, Mr Cameron and his political rivals promised, Scotland will get significant new powers, with talks on a fresh constitutional deal to start the day after the vote. Either way—but to very different degrees—Britain is about to change.

Even before this week’s polls suggested the gap between the separatist Yes and unionist No campaigns had closed, from around 20 points in favour of the union to next to nothing, there had been signs of a nationalist surge. A gambit from Alex Salmond, Scotland’s nationalist first minister, to present continued rule from Westminster as a risk to Scotland’s public services has worked. Town-hall and college debates had shown a sudden lurch to the “Yes” side, including among the youngest voters—unusually, 16- and 17-year-olds are being polled—who were considered staunchly unionist. Always more motivated than their unionist rivals, Yes campaigners are now turning out for a final push, from the Outer Hebrides to Glasgow’s slums, in a euphoric state. They think they have the momentum. They may be right.

No wonder Mr Cameron, who told an audience of investors in Edinburgh that he would be “heartbroken” if Scotland goes, is so worried. He gave the go-ahead for the referendum, after Mr Salmond’s Scottish National Party (SNP) won a majority in the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, and set its terms. That included refusing to allow a third option, of further devolution, onto the ballot paper. With opinion polls then pointing to a unionist triumph, that looked like an unnecessary insurance policy. Yet it is what Mr Cameron and the other leaders, in scrambled, humiliating fashion, are now promising (see article).

Their intervention will not win over many Yes supporters, who are united in nothing so much as disdain for Westminister. This is Mr Salmond’s main triumph—to have infected all his opponents with the detestation Scots have long reserved for Tories (see article). And this week’s emergency mission to Scotland has provided more grist to that mill: Mr Salmond described the promise of more devolution as a “bribe”. Given that most Scots are inclined to believe him, not Mr Cameron, the best the unionist leaders can hope for is to have shored up their leaky vote sufficiently to give Britain a fighting chance.

They hope for a rerun of Quebec’s 1995 referendum, when a last-ditch promise of more devolution helped turn back the separatists and leave Canada intact, by a tiny margin. Yet though their own push on devolution was announced with great fanfare, by the former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown—who promised “nothing less than a modern form of Scottish home rule”—it remains uncertain what it means.

The unionist parties have promised different things, ranging from a Tory promise of wide latitude to set income tax to Labour’s more niggardly offer of power to shift its rate by 15p. Set against the possible end of a 307-year union, that might seem a piffling difference. Yet with mistrust of politicians running high, it leaves room for Mr Salmond to spread doubt about the integrity of the unionists’ offer.

It does not help that the cross-party Better Together campaign has been dominated by such dry and, to many, incomprehensible policy arguments, concerning the economic risks that independence would entail. Scots are bored by them. The Yes surge suggests many are ignoring them. This is a particular indictment of Better Together’s oft-repeated argument concerning the uncertainty over what currency an independent Scotland would use. For most Scots, whose pound notes already look different from English ones, the problem the unionists describe seems arcane and, amid a general anti-establishment feeling, possibly designed to confuse. “Whatever happens, my pound will be as good as the next man’s,” they say.

Never has Better Together’s failure to offer a more positive case for the union, to set against Mr Salmond’s Utopian promises, looked more misjudged. So, too, does Mr Brown’s failure to involve himself much with the cross-party campaign before now. He dislikes its leader Alistair Darling, the former Labour chancellor of the exchequer, and is still smarting from his electoral defeat by Mr Cameron in 2010. Yet, though Mr Brown is derided in England for his failings as prime minister, he is the most trusted unionist in Scotland. With an arduous week of campaigning ahead of him, he has his work cut out. “The truth”, says John Curtice of Strathclyde University, “is that David Cameron is reliant on Gordon Brown to save his skin.”

Should he fail, and Scotland go, the fallout will be enormous—including in Westminster. Mr Cameron has said he would not resign. But his party—the Conservative and Unionist Party, to name it fully—might well try to topple him. Mr Miliband, who has been almost invisible in a unionist campaign which Labour has run, would also be greatly weakened. Robbed of Labour’s seats in Scotland—representing roughly a sixth of the current total—he would have almost no chance of winning a parliamentary majority. Mr Salmond has promised “no more Tory governments ever”. To which might then be appended: “Except in Westminster, for ever.”