United UK may survive Scottish referendum: Survey
18 Sep 2014
The UK may survive the referendum in Scotland on whether to end the 307-year-old union with England and become an independent nation or stay within the United Kingdom, a new survey showed.
Supporters of a united UK were maintaining a narrow but steady lead of four percentage points - 52 per cent against 48 per cent - over the supporters of Scottish independence, a pre-vote survey conducted by YouGov for The Times and Sun newspaper showed.
However, YouGov said, the race was too tight for analysts to forecast on the basis of the opinion surveys alone.
The market research agency only predicted an 80 per cent probability that the UK will hold together - giving a breakaway Scotland a 20 per cent chance.
Voters have a simple ''Yes'' or ''No'' choice to the question: ''Should Scotland be an independent country?''
While a ''yes'' win could have consequences across the globe, even with a ''nay'' win British politics is set to change forever after the referendum.
The immediate loser would be British Prime Minister David Cameron if Scotland votes to leave the UK. Some Conservative MPs believe he could even lose his job, according to The Independent.
For the UK's Labour Party, which currently holds 41 of Scotland's 59 constituencies, this would be the end of the road for it would no longer be able to send MPs to Westminster after Scotland's ''independence day'', which is due in March 2016 as per Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond's timetable.
Voting in Scotland, meanwhile, was in full swing today and people have been queuing up since morning to register their vote in the historic referendum.
Nearly 97 per cent of the electorate, adding up to 4,285,323 people, have registered to vote at 2,608 polling places across the country until 22:00 (local time) today, reports said.
Once the polls are over in Scotland's 32 local authority areas, ballots, including the 789,024 postal vote, will be counted. Results are expected early tomorrow morning in the UK.
