Too close to call

Palace officials are now “very concerned” that there may be a yes vote in the referendum on September 18. This year the Queen’s attendance at The Games, as the Gathering is known locally, has been coordinated with Downing Street in an effort to show Scots that she cares about them and wants them to stay. There has been little in the way of contingency planning for such an event but privately officials believe a vote for independence will provoke a constitutional crisis that could lead to Scotland eventually rejecting the monarchy.

“The Queen is a unionist,” says one. “Lots of people were telling us that it was going to be OK but there is now a great deal of concern. If there is a yes vote that puts us into uncharted territory constitutionally. Nothing is certain. Her being Queen of Scotland is not a given.”

It’s a legitimate fear. While Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister and the figurehead of the independence campaign, has been at pains to insist the Queen would remain head of state, he is at odds with many in the Yes Scotland camp, including the Green Party, the Scottish Socialists and republican nationalists. At a packed public meeting last month, Dennis Canavan, the republican chair of Yes Scotland’s advisory board, told one audience member who wanted an independent Scotland to ditch the monarchy that the important thing was to vote for independence first and a decision about the head of state would be taken after that.

The dramatic September lurch towards independence continues with today’s Sunday Times You Gov poll. So grim do things look for the unionist Better Together campaign led by former chancellor Alistair Darling, that the Queen is not the only pensioner they are now relying on to rescue the union. Both sides have private polling evidence that Yes camp is ahead in all age groups except the over-60s and they will become the focus of the remainder of the campaign, with nationalists planning to take a leaf out of president Obama’s book by getting young supporters to call their grandparents to urge them to vote for independence this week.

Both camps are said to be supressing the findings for their own reasons; the nationalists because they fear a backlash if they peak too soon and the unionists because they fear a panic in their ranks when news filters out. Last week the money markets experienced jitters as the No camp lead narrowed to just six points. A team is on standby at the Treasury in an effort to counteract the effect of political uncertainty on the markets in the wake of the vote.

With a haemorrhaging of support for the union from traditional Labour supporters, Gordon Brown and John Reid - “the heavy brigade” - have been drafted in. Strategists believe they have the best chance of connecting with traditional Labour supporters in the central belt who could swing it for the nationalists. Brown, who has mainly campaigned for United With Labour in a bid to avoid sharing a platform with the Conservatives, put aside old enmity and emailed Darling early on Tuesday morning to sign up to a gruelling programme of daily events.

Crucially, Yes Scotland has been able to generate a carnival atmosphere around its campaign. Merchandise with the distinctive blue Yes Scotland logo is as in demand as the latest “it” bag from Louis Vuitton or Celine. From Portree to Paisley nationalist pop-up shops have seen their shelves stripped of the distinctive t-shirts, caps and badges and the unionist Better Together campaign stripped of hope.

Even Jim Murphy, the former Scottish secretary and one of the most energetic campaigners who recommenced his 100 days campaign last week after facing aggression and egg pelting from opponents, was bemoaning “the energy of nationalism” last week. “They’re never knocked down,” he said.

A VoteYes concert in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall next Sunday, headlined by Amy Macdonald and featuring Franz Ferdinand, Mogwai, cult indie-rock band Frightened Rabbit and Eddi Reader is already sold out. With David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney and Bob Geldof all backing the union, critics are asking why there is no comparable Better Together gig.

Yes voters are also putting their money where their X is. According to Ladbrokes, the referendum is already the biggest betting event in political history with the Yes odds going into freefall after last month’s crucial second televised debate which went badly for Darling.

“We’re noticing record levels of engagement from customers who have never previously had a political bet before,” says a Ladbrokes’ spokesman. “In the period since that debate, stakes for yes have been surging to daily highs of £10,000, with four-figure yes bets placed in Scotland ticking through by the hour, but also a deluge of fivers, tenners and twenties, all of which, are coming from those who will also be voting yes”.

Unsurprisingly, the mood within the unionist camp is bleak. Better Together figures have christened Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary overseeing the campaign, “Rain Man” after the autistic character played by Dustin Hoffman in the eponymous film because “people cannot connect with him”. He is also being blamed for a disastrous television advert aimed at undecided women, portraying them as indecisive and stupid, which has been widely lampooned on social media.

“Douglas is a good debater and master of his shadow brief but he comes across as po-faced and pompous and you have to worry that he is influencing strategy at Better Together because he’s never had a good grasp of strategy,” says a senior Labour figure. “He is someone who has an idea and then hunts for evidence to try to back it up.”

Another says: “The problem isn’t that Labour and Tory figures in the campaign don’t get on, it’s that people in the Labour party hate Douglas.”

Unionists on both sides of the Border are venting frustration at the quality of the Better Together team which they claim lacks vision and ability. Labour’s inability to commit to substantial extra powers in the event of a no vote is also frustrating Tory activists. Much of the flak is directed at Better Together’s campaign director, Blair MacDougall, the former special adviser who ran David Miliband’s ill-fated leadership campaign, and who insiders say has become increasingly side-lined in recent weeks.

“It’s a campaign with no vision and no direction – the general feeling is that the people are just not up to the job on the Labour side,” says one unionist insider.

“They are having to catch up with the way people live their lives now which is not hierarchical and top down by peer-to-peer and networked,” says Willie Sullivan, Scottish director of the Electoral Reform Society. “Yes Scotland has run a much more effective grass roots campaign”.

Radical Independence – the left wing group - has been active on the schemes and estates of the Central Belt signing up the so-called missing million –Scots, mostly in the lowest socio-economic groups who never vote, along with those who are life-long Labour voters.

The ‘Yes’ campaign is perceived to be more successful because it is more positive

Alan Wyllie, 37, from Paisley is voting Yes. “I have always been a Labour voter,” he says. “Nationalism has never been something that appealed to me. But I think the desires of Scottish people are grossly mismanaged in Westminster. We don’t vote for Tories and that’s the government we’ve got. If there was an option to vote for devo-max [handing substantial tax powers to the Scottish parliament] then I would have ticked that on the ballot. But there isn’t and I just don’t believe these political parties who say we are going to get it if we vote No. It goes back to trust, and I just don’t trust what the parties in Westminster do or say”.

As the tide turned in favour of independence and demoralisation set in last week David Miliband switched his campaign plans to try to shore up No support among traditional Labour voters, and Anas Sarwar, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, convened a conference call of all the party’s Scottish MPs and MSP urging them to hold their nerve. Sampling which indicates that some of the first postal votes are looking positive for the No side are also being used to keep the unionists calm.

With local electoral offices reporting a rush of applications before registration closed last week, turnout in the campaign is expected to be at record levels and could exceed 80%. Ultimately the result could depend on which campaign is able to best mobilise its supporters on the day.

The hope expressed by Better Together is that, as voters realise independence is a real possibility, the silent majority will come out in force and ensure a drift back from the brink to the status quo in the final days of what has been the longest running political campaign in recent British history. But it may already be too late.

So what has gone wrong for the unionists? With the electorate expected to vote primarily for economic reasons, why are Better Together’s warnings on the currency union not having more impact? Why are women and Labour voters - two key groups the unionists believed they could count on - now abandoning them? How can Better Together counteract these union city blues?

Lindsay Fitzpatrick, a 33 year-old nurse from East Kilbride holds some of the answers. A stalwart of the NHS, she is currently on maternity leave and was until recently undecided. She has traditionally voted Labour and should have been a shoo-in for Better Together but will vote yes to independence in 11 days’ time.

“The concern about the privatisation of the NHS has hit home to me,” she says. “That does make a difference. I have noticed that, even though the SNP currently has control of the NHS, things have got tighter recently at my hospital. There have been cuts”.

Fitzpatrick also shares the concerns of many Scottish voters about the possibility of another Tory Government at Westminster in 2016. As for unionist claims that independence would be economically damaging, she is equivocal.

“To be honest, that is something I really am unsure about,” she says when asked if she believe independence will make her family financially better off. “I think it is really hard to predict until we’ve actually got independence. I don’t know if we will have a currency union but I think it is worth the risk of voting Yes. I have noticed within my group of friends and family the majority are now voting Yes, not just the ones who were previously undecided but also a couple of No voters. I’ve also noticed there seems to be a lot more campaigners for Yes. There’s a lot more posters and stickers and more Yes leaflets coming through the door”.

According to John McTernan, a former special adviser to Tony Blair, the single biggest factor in the improving fortunes of the nationalists has been their ability to convince voters that the NHS would be under threat if Scotland stayed in the union. In spinning this argument, Yes Scotland commandeered a crucial weapon in the unionists’ arsenal – the promotion of uncertainty, with the idea that remaining in the Union posed as much of a risk as the unionists have argued leaving it poses.

“The idea that the NHS is under threat if Scotland stays in the union is the big lie of the campaign,” says McTernan. “Concern about the NHS came up in focus group after focus group for the Nats, even though it is devolved. The NHS is the greatest example of the benefits of the Union but the nationalists tend to attack their opponents on their strengths – not their weaknesses. They go for the head.”

Crucially, women - a group traditionally sceptical of independence - are starting to back Yes in significant numbers. An exclusive Mumsnet poll of Scots mothers for the Sunday Times found 48% saying they believe Scotland should become independent compared with 41% backing the Union with 11% undecided. Almost a third of those who voted Labour in the last election say they will vote Yes this time round.

Of the 984 respondents - a self-selecting and unweighted sample - 54% are either sure or very sure of the consequences of independence, with 46% believing it will be good for their family, though only 26% think their family would actually be financially better off with independence. And while 52% would be concerned to some degree if Scotland were not able to join a currency union, 61% believe that in the event of independence Scotland will keep the pound despite UK government claims to the contrary.

Some 42% believe independence would be good for the Scottish economy with 38% believing it would be bad and 8% thinking it would be neutral. Mumsnet users will have the opportunity to quiz Darling and Salmond on Wednesday in what will be the last one-on-one debate of the campaign. There is still much to play for.

“The issue of the economic viability of an independent Scotland has been raised far more frequently than individual household budgets in discussions but the impact of separation on jobs, welfare, health and education are all areas of concern for Mumsnet users,” says Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts.

Julie Paterson, who works in IT at Strathclyde University and is currently on maternity leave, has been sceptical of independence until very recently. Now she is voting yes.

“Alex Salmond has run the best campaign because it just more positive,” she says. “It’s a vote for change. A lot of young people seem to be voting yes. The Better Together campaign is overwhelmingly No and because of all the budget cuts and austerity people are fed up with the Westminster government anyway. It’s harder to argue for the status quo because people aren’t happy with it”.

Voters’ fear of another Tory government is something Labour has woken up to relatively late in the day. As transport workers union the RMT came out in favour of Yes on Thursday, Ed Miliband was in Glasgow to accuse the SNP of attempting to “con” Scottish voters into believing independence was the only way to achieve social justice. He described the Conservatives as “divided and demoralised” and predicted a Labour win in the next election.

It is a measure of how worried unionists are that the Conservative strategists were said to have approved the Miliband speech. In a televised debate last week, Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, went so far as to hint that she thought it unlikely that her boss David Cameron would win the general election in 2016.

With as many as 20% of the electorate still said to be undecided or open to persuasion, it remains to be seen whether there will be a unionist backlash against the recent nationalist gains. Voters are generally risk-averse and the side that can convince them it can protect what they most value about the status quo is likely to see its polling figures rise.

“At the very end of a referendum campaign people tend to wake up to the risk of change and there is a reversion back to the status quo,” says Sullivan. “It’s called the reversion point and it tends to come in the last four weeks of a campaign. Except when it doesn’t. The most famous example is in Quebec [when the vote was 49% in favour of independence and 51% against] and that is what seems to be happening here. The reversion point could come in very, very late and the last few points will be the hardest for the Yes campaign to convert. It will be very tough for Yes to win but I now believe they can do it and I didn’t believe that a fortnight ago”.