Celebrities lead final push for yes vote in Scotland

Celebrities led the final day of campaigning for the Yes camp with a rally in the centre of Glasgow.

Actors Elaine C Smith and Martin Compston joined singer Ricky Ross to generate support in the final hours before the vote.

Smith took hold of the loudspeaker to tell the crowds on the steps of the Royal Concert Hall to “change the world”. “What it takes to change the world is a pencil and a piece of paper on a ballot, and putting your cross on Yes can change the world,” she said.

She urged Scots to “get out there and vote for a future and vote for hope”. Smith said the way politicians in Westminster had handled the referendum campaign had been “arrogant” and voters did not feel listened to.

“We can actually do something about this and bring about a wonderful change in democracy for the whole of the UK,” she said.

More than a hundred pro-independence campaigners turned out for the event, chanting “hope, not fear” as they waved balloons and banners.

Compston said Scotland’s “political soul” had been re-awakened but suggested that “scaremongering” pro-union politicians should play no part in the country if it goes independent. “The positivity and the energy and the hope in the streets is fantastic, and I feel like we are part of history here,” he said.

“But, we haven’t won it yet, we have to keep going.” The Line Of Duty star added: “People have re-awakened their political soul because they feel like their vote now counts.” He criticised a lack of detail in the pledge to transfer more powers to Scotland made by the leaders of the three main Westminster parties.

“We won’t be fooled any more. Let’s stand up, let’s be brave. We will make mistakes but they’ll be our mistakes,” he said. “They keep saying there is no way back, this is the point of it. It isn’t about next year or five years or 10 years, it’s about the next 100 years. It’s about our kids’ kids’ kids. Let’s build a better country.”

He added: “Come Friday morning, when we win this thing, every No voter is going to be standing shoulder to shoulder with us to build a new country. “The only ones I think who need to worry, as it were, are the politicians who have been scaremongering and calling us failures because, to me, they don’t deserve the right to help us build a new country.”

Ross conceded that voters would be scared but said the UK had already suffered great hardship. He said: “Of course they are scared, people are worried because they have got families to feed, they have got mortgages to pay. “But in 2008 a crash came along which all the economic experts in the world didn’t tell us was coming, people experienced it and had the hardships.

“That’s real economic terror. So people can get through these things. “Don’t tell us terrible things will happen because no one knows the future, you can’t tell the future.”

He said Scots would have to accept the results of the vote either way and “move on”. “If it’s a Yes, I’m sure that they (No supporters) will join in and make that work and if it’s a No I would 100% join ... certainly I won’t be campaigning after this anyway. “I want to be a citizen and just make it work.”