September 18th 2014 is a seminal day in the history of British politics. All day the people of Scotland have been voting on whether to remain part of the United Kingdom or to go it alone as an independent nation. As I type this, the TV spools on as a number of talking heads debate the implications of each outcome, whilst in halls all over Scotland people are set for a long night of counting the ballot papers that will determine the outcome. The last couple of weeks have stressed how finely poised the outcome is: various polls have, at one point or another, put each camp marginally ahead of the other.
It's being reported now that the 'No' campaign might just have done enough to take it (though, of course, without any results in at the moment, and the fact that no exit polls have actually been commissioned, this is all speculation), which, if it proves to be the case, I personally am glad about. I can't confess to having thoroughly researched all the issues, but from what I have read, I think that the case for a successful independent Scotland is, at best, in the words of the Scottish legal system, Not Proven. From where I've been sitting, the 'Yes' campaign seems to have assumed that a lot of things will go the way they want them to in any post 'Yes' vote negotiations, but failed to provide enough solid evidence to back their case up. Moreover, in a world that is full of borders, both geographical and metaphorical, it'd be somewhat disheartening to think of one being willingly erected so close to home. Of course, at this point in time the result could still be 'Yes', in which case we are in a brave new world, and it could very well be a bumpy next eighteen months or so for those of us who reside in the British Isles.....
