Scotland referendum: Saving Great Britain
In a few hours from now, more than four million Scottish voters would have decided the destiny of the United Kingdom. A "yes" vote for independence from the UK in the highly anticipated September 18 Scottish referendum, or a "no" vote to remain within the kingdom.
British market researcher Ipsos-MORI's latest numbers forecast a slender victory for the naysayers when votes are counted on September 19 - 51 per cent more than 49 per cent.
But with record voter turnouts expected, the results may be unpredictable. What is certain is the stunning success of Alex Salmond's Scottish National Party (SNP) and his emotive rallying cry of "Scotland's future in Scotland's hands".
The "yes" campaign run by the First Minister of Scotland, said the independent nation would be among the top 20 wealthy nations in the world, free to exploit its own natural resources and promised to expel Britain's flotilla of four Trident nuclear missile armed submarines from their sole Scottish base. The campaign narrowed the "No independence" camp's lead from double digits to just two percentage points in less than a month.
The SNP's alarming new gains prompted a rally-around by the "Better Together" anti-independence campaign by the entire British political spectrum. British Prime Minister David Cameron made an emotive appeal to Scots to stay within the union and promised greater economic devolution. English-born Harry Potter author JK Rowling warned natives of her adopted home Scotland that "there would be no going back", former prime minister Gordon Brown, a Scotsman, urged "No" voters to "stand up and be counted".
Even Queen Elizabeth II, whom the SNP says will remain monarch of an independent Scotland, urged voters to "think carefully about their future".
A parallel negative campaign warned Scotland that a deficit of more than 20 billion pounds would be aggravated by UK's refusal to share its currency, the Pound Sterling. Private Eye, Britain's top satirical magazine contrasted the two campaign extremes: "Yes", showed tourists on a sunny beach; "No", a vision from Dante's inferno.
"Whichever way the vote goes, is risky," says Glasgow-based political economist David Donald. "Change is inevitable no matter what the outcome."
A "No" vote could mean Prime Minister Cameron having to fulfil his promises of an economic bounty to Scotland, what one political commentator called "running out of a burning house into a car without brakes".
A yes vote, on the other hand, will be catastrophic for Great Britain. It would cost much more than just lucrative whiskey exports, nuclear submarine bases or Scotland's white St Andrews cross from the Union Jack. Britain could well lose the rights to an adjective: Great.