Yes or No?
Richard Lutz is in Scotland for the independence vote on Thursday, and says the undecided will decide.
The polls, ever present, are all over the place this week as Scot!and heads into the final lap over the referendum. And the subject they really can’t agree on is that all-important Don’t Know category. Some say it’s as little as 4%. Some say it is as high as an eye-opening 20%. Many agree it is somewhere between 12 and 15%.
With that huge rump of undecided vote in the mix, I will put my head above the parapet and say the vote will go No. And it is for this reason: if voters still cannot make up their minds when they enter the privacy of a booth, I feel he or she will stick with the status quo. And that status quo is staying within the UK.
It is human nature. If you don’t have a vision or a dream, stay where you are. So I put the vote by Friday morning at 53-47 for veering away from independence.
What I do believe did not help the Better Together camp is what a Scottish voter told me. She said the government placed an albatross around its own neck by opting for the word No to keep the union together.
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She said if the ballot had been constructed so that a Yes vote meant Yes for keeping the UK together and a No meant against keeping the UK together, the decision would have been more clear-cut for the tripartite coalition, led by David Cameron, Â trying to lasso Scotland within the one-nation corral.
The anti-independence camp had a subliminal mark against it, in other words, being saddled with the word No. People want to say Yes to things. Not a negative No. And every day, I see this as I walk down a street, drive down a lane, travel on a train.
In Ayrshire, where I have spent a lot of time recently, it may look as if the pro-Independence camp is overwhelmingly in command here. Their banners and posters are everywhere But that old Yes/No dichotomy still holds sway. People are happier, psychologically, to put a big Yes placard in a window rather than a postet with that two letter word No printed on it.
But even with that boost of being helped with the right word, it is the Undecided that will decide. They are a big question mark. And one that will sway things, despite the SNP politics,to keep the UK status quo.
Your analysis seems very plausible, and the political parties will learn from this, particularly for any EU referendum where the Conservative Party will push very hard against Cameron for Should Britain leave the EU? rather than Should Britain remain a member of the EU?
Of course, the idea that the decision is forever is a pointless canard. Any decision can be reversed in the future. If the Scots vote Yes and it doesn’t work out England isn’t going to want a pauper nation on its northern borders. We would welcome them back on our terms and without the added benefits they enjoy now or plan to have as an independent nation. Could be the best way to go.
Scotland? V interesting any way it goes.