The latest polls have shown that the advance of YES is slowing. In a volatile campaign anything can happen any day, but the final outcome depends on a single emotional issue. If Scotland votes with her heart, she will vote YES. If she votes with her head, she will vote NO. If the answer is NO, Salmond will have failed to achieve his stated goal because he has failed to offer a package which combined head and heart together. The uncertainties of both currency and cost, which cannot be dismissed with clever soundbites about team Westminster and the like, remain unknown and unanswered. The doleful performance of John Swinney on the today programme on BBC Radio 4 this morning confirmed this.
If the answer is YES Salmond will have delivered, but the independence will be nothing like so complete as his supporters expected. This is because the monetary union he advocates, if he gets it, will leave the Scottish economy in the iron grip of the Bank of England and the English Treasury. If he is forced to use sterlingisation, the financial and banking industries in Scotland will have to domicile themselves south, because they must have the backing of a Central Bank to function. His credibility will take a big enough knock for the Scottish Nationalists to risk losing to Labour at the first Scottish general election after independence. Because Scottish Labour will almost certainly be led by Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling. With Danny Alexander, Menzies Campbell, Charles Kennedy and others from the Lib Dems, Labour’s big beasts will no longer sit in Westminster and will arrive in Edinburgh, changing the political landscape of an independent Scotland.
So if YES triumphs in a week’s time there is every prospect that Salmond will not be home and dry, but soon high and dry, either without true independence, or without a proper currency. On the other hand if he loses and it is NO, the lavish devo max offered in panic by the derided team Westminster, will deliver more or less what he wanted in the first place and make him something of a political hero. Politics is a funny business.
