To chants of "yes we can", the first minister urged more than 1,200 activists at the yes campaign's final rally in Perth to continue campaigning vigorously on referendum day, urging them on with the words "let's do this now".
The latest polls found that the referendum race remained extremely close, as both yes and no campaigns prepared themselves for a day of intense voter mobilisation for the 900 minutes when the booths are open. One poll from Ipsos Mori for STV put the rival campaigns just two points apart at 49% and 51%, and YouGov, for the Sun and the Times, confirmed the other recent polls by putting the gap at 48% for yes and 52% for no.
That 49% yes vote found by Ipsos Mori is the polling company's highest pro-independence figure of the campaign but Survation, which among the pollsters has historically given the highest shares to the yes vote, found there was a six-point gap at 47% for yes and 53% for no in a poll for the Daily Record.
"We're still the underdogs in this campaign," said Salmond. "Each and every one of us has a job to do to convince our fellow citizens to vote by a majority for a new dawn for Scotland. A land of opportunity and also a land of fairness. So let's do it, and let's do it now.
"We need this, we need this to happen. This time isn't about me, it isn't about the SNP or the Labour party or the Tories or any political party. It's about you, it's about your family, your hopes, your ambitions. Don't let them tell us we can't. Let's do this now."
As the final batch of polls suggested the no vote still had a narrow but consistent lead, the SNP leader told the rally in Perth that the yes movement had been "the greatest campaign in Scottish history – and you the greatest campaigners".
On an earlier visit to Stewarton, Ayrshire, on a final leg of a breakneck tour of west and south-west Scotland by car and helicopter, Salmond had suggested he still believed a yes vote was possible. Yes Scotland is to dispatch a fleet of people-carriers and buses across Scotland to take up to 300,000 elderly and first-time voters to the polls; tens of thousands of activists are to fan out across towns and cities to mobilise voters.
"My confidence is based on what's happening in the streets and communities around Scotland. I think there's a very substantial movement towards yes," Salmond said in Stewarton, adding that it was not simply an anti-Tory protest vote. People "are going to vote for something, for that vision of more prosperous but also a more just society. That's what's going to motivate people in the polling stations tomorrow".
Yet as he spoke Panelbase released the first of several polls due out on the final day of campaigning. It too put no at 52% and yes at 48%. Panelbase's survey also suggested voters would be more cautious in the polling booth: it found that 53% thought they would vote no on the day.
But those figures still imply that nearly two million of the 4.3 million voters registered for the referendum would back independence on Thursday. As the SNP's core nationalist vote is less than a third of the population, the yes campaign has reached voters from Labour, across the radical left and the Scottish Greens to push their support close to 50%.
Willie Sullivan, director of the Scottish branch of the Electoral Reform Society, which campaigns for voting reform and decentralisation, said that scale of support for independence suggested a historic level of antipathy for the current structures of the UK.
He added that many no voters wanted significant change, too, voting to stay in the UK because of the promise of greater devolution. Labour's leader, Ed Miliband, has implied he will press on with reforming the House of Lords, and is backing greater devolution within England.
"What the Scottish vote shows is that the British state model of power being held in Westminster and operating through outdated conventions and steam age ways of working has just been rejected by a lot of the Scottish people," Sullivan said. "We can assume that a lot of no voters want to reject that as well, but they can see some benefits from partnership."
Before launching a scathing attack on the rushed joint commitment by the UK parties to guarantee extra powers for Holyrood, Salmond told activists in Perth that Scotland would always seek a "harmonious relationship" with the rest of the UK if it votes for independence. "In an independent Scotland you will find the closest friend, most honest counsel and most committed ally. What we seek is a relationship of equals in these isles for our mutual advantage," he said.
But seizing on a growing revolt by backbench Tory MPs over David Cameron's backing for a deal to offer greater tax powers to Scotland, while protecting its preferential Treasury funding scheme under the Barnett formula, Salmond said the UK parties' promises were already looking at serious risk.
"So the Westminster parties cobble together separate, contradictory proposals for more powers – none of which offer any answers to the real challenges we face. They fail to come up with an agreed package that the voters can judge and scrutinise and vote on," Salmond said. "Instead they say 'leave it to us, we will sort it out' – behind closed doors, among themselves in the committee rooms of Westminster.
"It is an approach out of touch and out of time. But let's be clear – in the event of a no vote, even if such a deal could be struck, it wouldn't be the people of Scotland who would have the final say."
He added: "It is the clearest demonstration yet of why Scotland's future must be in Scotland's hands. It makes the case for yes more clearly than ever ... with a yes vote we can deliver for Scotland real power – the power to choose hope over fear, opportunity over despair."
Separately, speaking to the Guardian, Salmond said of Cameron: "Should he resign? At first, I thought no. But now I don't know. The way he has fought the campaign in Scotland has been miserable. His jacket is on a shoogly nail. You would not need to resign if you fought it properly but it was the way he did it. Just on the grounds of incompetence he should be pulled up. His conduct has been demeaning."
Original Article
Source: theguardian.com/
Author: Severin Carrell
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