Scots Head to the Polls Thursday to Vote on Independence
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iStock/Thinkstock(EDINBURGH, Scotland) — The people of Scotland are heading to the polls Thursday to vote on an historic referendum on whether to secede from the United Kingdom. The polls opened at 7 a.m. local time and will remain open until 10 p.m. local.
A vote to break away would grant Scotland independence for the first time in over 300 years and separate it from the rest of Great Britain, which also includes England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Various opinion polls show a slight majority favoring maintaining the status quo, but after allowing for margins of error, it’s pretty much too close to call.
The voter turnout is heavy already. As of Wednesday, 98 percent of eligible voters had registered.
It’s a very different kind of election than what would take place in the United States. There is no exit polling or last minute campaigning, just people lining up at the polls and then counting the ballots. It’s expected, given how close this vote seems, that people will not know the results of this referendum until Friday morning breakfast time in Scotland.
Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a Scotsman, seemed almost overcome with emotion Wednesday as he summoned the ghosts of the United Kingdom’s war dead down through the centuries, “Scotsmen, Welshmen, Englishmen and Irishmen lying side by side.”
“We who vote ‘no’ love Scotland,” Brown said.
Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, supports a “yes” vote for independence. “This is our opportunity of a lifetime and we must seize it with both hands,” Salmond said.
At the heart of the debate for separation from London is a bitter dissatisfaction among many Scots with a trend in the United Kingdom towards a more market-based conservatism than people in Scotland want.
Scots have come to see themselves as more European, more socially democratic, and less reflexively pro-American in foreign policy than the establishment that governs them from London.
President Obama weighed in on the referendum on Twitter. The president tweeted, “The UK is an extraordinary partner for America and a force for good in an unstable world. I hope it remains strong, robust and united. -bo”
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