The Scottish referendum: Implications for Northern Ireland

It won’t come as a really big surprise that the latest poll (published in The Sunday Times) showed that the ‘yes’ campaign in the Scottish referendum is now in the lead for the very first time, though by a very narrow margin.

The YouGov survey shows the nationalists with a two-point lead, and if they can hold that momentum, then Scotland is on course to vote for independence in the referendum on September 18. The latest poll puts the ‘yes’ side on 51%, with the unionists on 49% — an outcome that overturns a 22-point lead enjoyed by the Better Together campaign just over a month ago. Of course the only poll that matters — that on September 18 — has still to be decided, and there is ample time for the ‘no’ side to muster its troops and sway voters.

Just now the result is balanced on a knife-edge, but already George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer, has warned that the referendum poses “an existential threat” to the British state. Some Conservative MPs have even said that David Cameron would have to resign as prime minister if Scotland decides to go it alone. This is just one of many imponderables raised by the referendum. The TV debates between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling ranged across a number of these. There is the currency question, the revenues from North Sea oil, the future of the nuclear submarine bases in Scotland, the implications for Queen Elizabeth II as Scottish head of state and her oath to uphold the Church of Scotland, and, crucially, the status of an independent Scotland vis-à-vis the EU.