Scottish independence: 10 days to referendum - As it happened

Gordon Brown has revealed plans to rush new tax and welfare powers for Scotland through Westminster before the next election, in an effort to stop Labour voters backing independence.
The former prime minister said Labour wanted draft legislation ready by the end of next January, only four months after the referendum on 18 September, as part of an urgent effort by the no campaign to regain control of the independence debate.

Momentum in the run-up to next week’s independence referendum is all with the Yes campaign while the “relentlessly negative tactics” of the pro-UK parties “appear to be failing”, according to the Scottish Deputy First minister. Nicola Sturgeon, who said that the no campaign was engulfed in panic, adding that as polling day grew closer, increasing numbers of women and Labour supporters were now backing a Yes vote.

The pound has slumped to a 10-month low after the yes campaign took the lead in the opinion polls just 10 days before the Scottish independence vote.
Sterling fell sharply, losing almost one and a half cents against the US dollar to reach $1.618, the lowest level since November 2013.

I’m going to wrap up the blog at this point. Thanks for reading.

Looking for an alternative take on the referendum debate? This new online comedy series by film maker Bob Denham could be the thing.

It imagines the debate through the prism of the domestic rows between a young gay couple, one from England and the other from Scotland, who are close to a breakup.

EconFilms, which is behind the series, has today launched its own Alternative Youtube Scottish IndyRefPoll called United Queendom. The viewer chooses if the couple should break up or stay together.

It has been an uncertain day on European stock markets, with political concerns over Scotland and other issues continuing to weigh on share prices, writes the Guardian’s Nick Fletcher.

In the UK, a weekend poll showing a majority in Scotland in favour of independence dominated the market, with some £2.6bn wiped off the value of leading shares with Scottish links.

Royal Bank of Scotland - which mitigated the damage with news of its flotation of Citizens in the US - ended down 4.5p or £513m.

Lloyds - not able to follow suit with any corporate developments up its sleeve - dropped by £1.28bn.

The UK government, already reeling from the weekend poll results, was looking at a near £500m fall in the value of its stakes in the two banks.

Gordon Brown has revealed plans to rush new tax and welfare powers for Scotland through Westminster before the next election in an effort to stop Labour voters backing independence.

A piece by the Guardian’s Severin Carrell on that potentially crucial development is now online here:

The former prime minister said Labour wanted draft legislation ready by the end of next January, only four months after the referendum on 18 September, as part of an urgent effort by the no campaign to regain control of the independence debate.

The package is likely to include agreement that Holyrood should set and control a far larger chunk of income tax raised in Scotland, and potentially £1.7bn a year in housing benefits, though Labour is resisting Conservative and Liberal Democrat proposals to hand Scotland total control over its income tax rates.

Plans for a high-speed legislative timetable involving Labour, the Tories and Lib Dems were confirmed by the chancellor, George Osborne, on Sunday after a YouGov poll gave the yes campaign its first lead in the referendum campaign.

The shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, has said there would be no single cross-party manifesto on more powers for the Scottish Parliament.

Speaking in Aberdeen, he said:

We’ve got three different political parties at Westminster, each with different proposals but with a common determination to say to the people of Scotland: if you vote No you will get the best of both worlds because there will be further devolution and we will keep the union.

I don’t think anybody is talking about, at the moment, there being one manifesto across all the three parties.

The three parties have got different proposals but they are all similar and the advantage is in our proposals, I believe.

Here’s Paul Waugh, editor of Politics Home, tweeting on the prominent role taken by Gordon Brown in announcing proposals later for a time table to devolve more powers to Scotland in the event of a no vote.

Waugh adds that it sounds like Brown’s phrase ‘Home Rule’ is also tolerated, if not authorised as such, by the prime minister.

There’s enough choreography going on by the sound of it to give the latest series of Strictly a run for its money.

Here’s that “Home Rule” quote which Brown is expected to use in his speech:

Labour since Keir Hardie has been the Party of Home Rule for Scotland within the United Kingdom so the plan for a stronger Scottish Parliament we seek agreement on is for nothing else than a modern form of Scottish Home Rule within the United Kingdom, published by St Andrews Day on 30 November, with the draft laws around 25 January – interestingly enough by Burns Night

JK Rowling, a prominent supporter and funder of the no campaign, has a literary slant on today’s piece in the New York Times by Paul Krugman, who warned Scots against embracing independence.

I wonder what Rowling’s fans abroad make of her Twitter stream at the moment:

Gordon Brown will set out Labour proposals for a timetable for new powers for the Scottish Parliament during a speech in Midlothian tonight, according to a statement just released by the Scottish Labour Party.

The former Prime Minister will say that by the end of October, just over five weeks after the referendum, Labour will seek a “command paper” that sets out all the plans, including areas on which there is disagreement and agreement.

Speaking at the Loanhead Miners’ Welfare, Brown will say that Labour will, by the end of November, seek Heads of Agreement on a new Scotland Act published in a White Paper, or its equivalent, which will report back on a month of consultation with Scottish civic society and with the groups who were engaged in talks during Scottish Constitutional convention.

He will add:

By the end of January 2015,we seek draft clauses ready for legislative enactment as the new Scotland Bill and Scotland Act.

I want to see draft clauses giving effect to these policies as soon as possible because I want legislation to happen as soon as possible.

And from November to January we would continue to consult the Scottish Parliament.

Today’s market turbulence gives us a glimpse of what would happen if Scotland votes yes, according to the Chief Secretary of the Treasury, Liberal Democrat MP Danny Alexander.

Speaking today on a visit to the offices of the the Weir Group, the engineering company, he echoed a claim being made by other politicians from the no camp today, asking:

Can Alex Salmond guarantee that the tremors we are seeing won’t turn into an earthquake?

Alexander said that there was a “huge prize” awaiting Scotland in the case of a no vote, adding that a recurring theme of conversations he has had in recent times with businesses was that they were “holding back” until they know the outcome of the referendum:

We know that inward investment has increased in Scotland because of - not in spite of - our membership of the UK. But just imagine what we could achieve without Alex Salmond’s independence uncertainty looming over us.

If we vote to stay in the UK, a huge weight will be lifted from Scotland’s shoulders.

The latest polls give a “scientific sheen” to what anyone who has spent time in Scotland in recent weeks has noticed: Support for independence building.

That’s from a new piece in Foreign Policy by Glasgow-based journalist Peter Geoghegan, who adds:

Looking out the window of my apartment in Glasgow, I can count half a dozen blue Yes stickers and a Scottish Saltire flag (a nationalist symbol) with the same motto across the street.

Most have appeared within the last month. Across Scotland, particularly in poorer urban areas, the political landscape is shifting in the nationalists’ favor.

Rumors are rife that Rupert Murdoch’s widely circulated tabloid, the Sun, will declare its support for independence in the coming week.

The next Scottish polls are being eagerly awaited to see if they will confirm the shift to yes recorded in the YouGov one for the Sunday Times, or if they will show it was just a blip.

However, the Guardian’s Ewen MacAskill has been told there is little relief on the horizon for Alistair Darling and the no campaign: that the next poll to be published on Tuesday will confirm the trend.

How will the markets react to that?

Social media and grassroots activism have been what has created the momentum that has Scotland to the brink of independence, according to Gerry Mooney, a senior lecturer in social policy at the Open University.

In a piece for The Conversation website, he writes:

Beyond the public discussion, mainstream media coverage and focus on high-profile politicians, far more political dialogue is taking place between family members, friends and work colleagues than usual.

You don’t have to look far on Facebook to find users displaying “Yes” or “No Thanks” badges in their profile photographs.

Mooney, who says that some see this “explosion” in grassroots activity as an echo of the movement against the poll tax in the 1980s, adds that both sides have sought to emphasise their grassroots credentials.

The demarcation between professional politicians and this grassroots mobilisation of ordinary people appears to be blurred in this contemporary Scottish political landscape.

It is evident that a hybrid movement has emerged within the campaign, which according to Tommy Sheridan “dwarfs the anti-poll tax campaign” that he led in the late 1980s.

Kirsty Strickland and her daughter were at the yes campaign rally in Glasgow today where Alan Cumming appeared alongside Nicola Sturgeon and spoke to the Guardian’s Libby Brooks.

Neither side of the referendum debate “has a monopoly on social justice or of trade union values such as unity and solidarity”, according to Grahame Smith, the general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC).

Speaking in advance of the publication of the STUC’s Final A Just Scotland Report on the Referendum, he said:

There are strong advocates for a more socially and economically just Scotland in both the Yes and No camps, just as there are those on both sides who give scant regard to the interests of working people and their families.

Voting yes does not mean that you have no concern for the cause of workers elsewhere in the UK or further afield just as voting no makes you no less of a patriot.

To imply, as some have, that you are less of a trade unionist if you don’t vote no or your union is any less concerned about solidarity, unity and social justice if it is not campaigning for a no, is simply wrong. Equally, to express reservations about voting yes makes you no less concerned about Scotland’s future.

At the TUC Annual Congress in Liverpool, Smith added that the STUC and unions representing the majority of union members in Scotland have democratically decided not to recommend either a yes or no vote.

That hasn’t meant we have been standing on the side lines. We have been actively engaged in the debate about Scotland’s future, attempting to ensure that the issues of concern to our members are addresses by both sides and making sure that people register to vote.

The direction the debate has taken and the number expected to vote on the day shows that we have had some success.

New York Times

Proposals to offer greater fiscal autonomy to the Scots will be offered by a British government “shaken by polls showing momentum shifting toward independence for Scotland,” the New York Times reports.

The report by Steven Erlanger adds that David Cameron, “already facing internal divisions over Britain’s membership in the European Union, may not survive politically if Scotland votes to break away from the United Kingdom.”

It adds that business leaders are also taking the prospect of dissolution more seriously, especially given the statement by all three main British parties that an independent Scotland would not be able to use the British pound.

El Pais

With half an eye on Basque, Catalan and other movements pushing for more autonomy or outright independence from Spain, the Spanish daily reports that “London” is going to offer more power to Scotland in a bid to “curb the pro-independence surge”.

The report by Walter Oppenheimer says that the advance of the yes side has been “devastating” in recent weeks after previous polling in August gave the no side a strong lead.

Corriere della Sera

Italy’s biggest-selling daily, carries a report alongside two photographs: one of the royals, a tartan blanket over the Queen’s knees, and the other of a cup of tea beside what appear to be pro-independence cup cakes.

Ten days before the referendum “that really could split the Union that has held strong for 307 years,” writes correspondent Michele Farina”, Westminster is engaging in some serious last-ditch campaigning.

“Who can imagine the Queen...walking through the woods of Balmoral like a foreigner? Will prince Charles have to show his passport or will a kilt be enough when he has to cross the border of the Tweed river?”

Le Monde

Asking if “the nightmare” of David Cameron and the rest of the British political establishment is poised to become reality, the French Daily says that Scottish independence had been considered a “chimera” in the past but was becoming a possibility.

Eleven days from the referendum which is set to decide on this, the newspaper reporks the rest of the UK, until now largely untroubled by the Scottish issue, has abruptly awoken.

Sydney Morning Herald

Picking up on market turbulence, the Herald reports that the Australian dollar hit a new high against the British pound, as markets reassess the possibility of Scottish independence from the UK after a weekend poll put supporters of a split in the lead for the first time.

The Irish Times

Referring to the YouGov poll for the Sunday Times which put the yes side ahead, Mark Hennessy writes: “One can but imagine Rupert Murdoch’s glee in New York on Saturday as he penned a Twitter message that caused consternation within moments on the other side of the Atlantic”

Hennessy also says that the current united front of Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Labour illustrates the alarm now existing at the highest levels of British society.

Campaigning today with Nicola Sturgeon, actor Alan Cumming urged Scots to seize the “wonderful opportunity” of independence and vote Yes in next week’s referendum.

The actor, originally form Aberfeldy, Perthshire, said:

I feel so good. I’ve always felt the longer the campaign goes on, the more likely it’s going to be a Yes victory.

But I was worried that it wouldn’t be able to go on long enough for the swing to take place.

But I think this last weekend, this poll that has comes out shows it really is going that way and that’s why I’m here to help in the last push and to encourage people who might be lifelong Labour voters like myself, who are being told by their party to vote No, that actually don’t listen to what Westminster is saying to you, follow your heart.

He also hit back at those who criticise him for speaking out in the debate when he does not have a vote in the referendum, saying:

It kind of gets my goat when people say that. Nobody says why can’t David Cameron or Ed Miliband have a say, they’re not able to vote either.

On the campaign trail in Edinburgh’s Stockbridge area today, Better Together leader Alistair Darling has dismissed claims that the announcement on a timetable for new powers for Scotland was coming too late in the day.

He said:

All the evidence I’ve seen is that people know that change is coming, change within the United Kingdom, and that’s what they want.

Defending Labour’s decision not to offer full devolution of income tax in its plans for more powers, he also denied a Labour failure to mobilise its supporters was at fault for the pro-union campaign falling behind in the polls.

Yes there is traffic between the parties on the Yes and No. It’s equally clear from the polling evidence there’s a lot of people who voted SNP in the past who are going to vote No this time because they don’t want to break away.

It’s not surprising with an issue like this where the stakes are so high, where you are talking not about electing a government for the next five years, you’re talking about forever, it’s not surprising that people right up to the wire will be agonising which way to go. But I think we’ll win at the end.

He added that uncertainty in the markets was “bad news for everyone”, saying:

Markets don’t like uncertainty and for as long as there’s uncertainty you will get a bit of jitteriness in the system.

But what’s causing the uncertainty is that if Scotland were to leave the UK, what currency would we be using? What impact would it have on spending? That’s where the uncertainty is coming from.

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