SCOTLAND DECIDES: ‘This is our first chance in 300 years to be ourselves’

"I’m swithering," said a woman outside the parliament building in Edinburgh as she used a local term for swinging backwards and forwards without being able to make a decision to explain where she stood as Scotland’s future hung precariously in the balance.

And the dilemma expressed by Sheila McGregor holds the key to this election, as which ever way the “don’t knows” break determines whether Scotland itself breaks away from the UK or not.

With the final polls showing a 51-49 split in decided voters, the significant numbers of those yet to make up their minds after two full years of campaigning will determine the outcome.

The shuttle train from Glasgow to Edinburgh was alive with debate as strangers threw the usual solitude of such journeys to the wind and discussed the significance of the referendum as the hours ticked down to a momentous — and if it is Yes — irrevocable decision for the country.

An English woman in her late 40s who has lived north of the border for 10 years wondered whether she should vote at all: “I don’t really think it is my choice — but then people tell me I’ll have no choice in paying the taxes afterwards...”

In an inverse of the usual generational roles, as the train pulled into the Scottish capital, a man in his late teens who had clearly been listening to her concerns, passed the English woman and told her: “You have to vote — it’s too important not to.”

It was a scene redolent of a national debate that has finally caught fire in the last three weeks following months of dry economic exchanges which left most of the electorate cold, and more than a little confused by the claim and counter claim of the consequences of consigning the 307-year-old union to history.

People realise there will be no going back from a Yes vote, which is why turnout is expected to soar to 85%, and the No side is on the defensive.

“My heart says yes, but then your head kicks-in and you’re left wondering about the finality of the outcome,” David Sinclair, 51, said as he spoke for many of the waiverers who fear the uncertainty of separation and a drop in economic confidence during the 18-month long independence negotiations planned with London after a breakaway vote.

Acknowledging an anti-English tone had crept into some of the rhetoric on the Yes side, Steve Kelly, 22, noted: “But this is not about England, it is about Scotland, and this is our first chance in 300 years to be ourselves — how can we let that slip away?”

The confidence and can-do attitude of youth has been a driving factor in the rapid growth of the Yes side which scored a key advantage by making sure 16 and 17-year-olds were eligible to vote for the first time in this landmark election.

Yes voter Morven Quinn, 25, said an age divide was at play, adding: “I think we are more willing to go for it.”

And Yes supporters hit back at constant insistence by the No side that they are intimidating voters with aggressive tactics by claiming pro-Unionists were playing the race card by warning immigrants would not be welcome in an independent Scotland as they claimed it would inevitably turn in on itself if nationalism triumphed.

But if that is the case, it certainly has not worked on Skikdan Haosue, who left Bangladesh for a better life in Britain, and now wants to change countries again — but this time while staying put.

“I am voting yes because I believe in Scotland, and that Scotland must be free,” he announced.

As the 14th richest country in the world on the basis of GDP per person, ahead of France or the UK as a whole, and with ratings agency Standard & Poor’s saying it would qualify for its highest economic assessment even without the oil sector, Scotland has a lot to be confident about. But even in the minds of a number of Yes supporters there is fear that a silent swathe of pro-unionists may yet emerge from the woodwork.

One No voter, who did not want to be named said: “It’s just too risky, you see the housing estates where Yes posters outnumber the No Thanks posters 10 to one and it brings it home to you that a lot of the people backing independence have been hit hard by the recession and feel they really have very little to lose in this gamble.”

Ardent Yes campaigner Rona McDonald said Scottish people would come together on Friday no matter what the result, and using another local term, this time for the children of Scotland, she declared: “I’m putting a sign up in my window on polling night saying: “Whatever the outcome we are all Jock Tamson’s bairns.”