Salmond implores Scots to grasp ‘opportunity of a lifetime’

Scottish nationalist leader Alex Salmond implored Scots to grasp the 'opportunity of a lifetime' to secure independence in a vote tomorrow that could break the United Kingdom apart.

"This is our opportunity of a lifetime and we must seize it with both hands," Mr Salmond told a meeting of supporters in Perth, eastern Scotland, just hours before polling stations open. "This in my estimation has been the greatest campaign in Scottish democratic history," Mr Salmond said, though he added that the British establishment had thrown "the kitchen sink" at the independence campaign.

He derided an offer of more powers from British leaders as a “tepid offer of next to nothing” but said he would accept the result if he lost the independence vote. “Scotland’s future must be in Scotland’s hands,” Mr Salmond told hundreds of supporters waving the white on blue Scottish flag who chanted “Yes we can”.

The two rival referendum campaigns today issued a final rallying call to voters in Scotland, as they prepare to decide the future of the United Kingdom in tomorrow's historic ballot.

With less than 24 hours to go until polls open, those for and against independence have been on the streets of Scotland for one last day of frantic campaigning.

Former prime minister Gordon Brown made a passionate appeal to Better Together activists in Glasgow. He told then that the SNP’s main aim is to “break every single constitutional and political link with our neighbours and friends in the United Kingdom”.

But Mr Brown insisted: “We will not have this.” The Labour MP said of tomorrow’s referendum: “The silent majority will be silent no more.”

Polls continue to suggest that the referendum contest is going down to the wire. The latest poll from Panelbase today showed that Scottish support for independence has slipped slightly to 48 percent.

Former chancellor Alistair Darling also addressed the Better Together rally, where he said: "We are on the eve of the most momentous decision that Scotland will ever take.

”We will decide our country’s future. It’s that important.”

Mr Darling added: “If you have such a momentous decision to take you need to have certainty, but what is very clear at the end of this long campaign from the nationalist side is there is no certainty at all. ”

“For anyone in Scotland who has any doubt, be in no doubt you have to say No.” He insisted that the offer of more powers from the three Westminster parties was a better option than the ”years of wrangling and uncertainty” that would follow a Yes vote.

Mr Darling said: ”A vote to say No is a vote to keep the currency, a vote to say No is to safeguard the payment of pensions, a vote to say No is to guarantee the funding and the strength of our National Health Service. ”

“A vote to say No is a vote, too, for a stronger, strengthened Scottish Parliament with control over key services like health, like education, to make Scotland stronger, sooner and safer. ”

While David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg have all pledged to deliver more powers to Holyrood if Scotland rejects independence, this has been dismissed by nationalists. Scottish Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon hit out:

“‘The No camp’s panicked scramble to try and bribe the people of Scotland with a last-minute flimsy and meaningless offer is fooling no-one. ”

“Despite the fact the ‘vow’ doesn’t guarantee a single power, it has taken less that 24 hours to fall apart — Tory MPs are already up in arms about it. They are desperate to grip on to power over Scotland and — in the event of a No vote — they would not let it go. ”

Yes Scotland chair Dennis Canavan, who addressed as crowd of activists in Glasgow city centre, also insisted the people of Scotland would ”not be fooled”. The commitment to further devolution, coupled with a promise to maintain the Barnett Formula, which determines how funding is distributed across the UK, could spark a backlash among Conservative backbenchers.

Philip Davies, the Tory MP for Shipley in Yorkshire, said he would not back such a deal, saying on Twitter: ”For the record I will not be voting to maintain an unfair funding settlement for Scotland, whatever Messrs Cameron, Miliband and Clegg say. ”In the event of a No vote I will be doing all I can to stop MPs from Scotland voting on issues in Parliament which don’t relate to Scotland.” Mr Canavan, a former Labour MP, said comments such as that showed that the pro-UK campaign was ”in a complete state of disarray, with their so-called vow for extra powers for the Scottish Parliament”. He hit out: ”A vow — it looks like something written on the back of a fag packet at the fag end of a long campaign. But the people of Scotland will not be fooled. ”There is only one guarantee of getting more powers for the Scottish Parliament, and that is by voting Yes. ”So let’s take that message out, let’s take our message out to every street, every city, every town, every village. every community, every workplace, every home in Scotland.“

Later, hundreds of Yes voters gathered in Glasgow’s George Square to make a noisy show of their support for the campaign. They waved Saltires in the afternoon sun as they cheered speeches and sang along to bands.

One No supporter, an elderly man with a white beard, glasses and a cap, struggled to make himself heard despite his megaphone as he spoke from his vantage point at the foot of the Sir Walter Scott monument.

A Yes campaigner waved a flag in the man’s face before another pro-independence supporter pulled the Yes protester away. John Love, a retired warehouseman from Rosyth, Fife, told how he had spent two weeks making a special Saltire which read: “Scottish Independence Day, Bannockburn 1314, Ballot Box 2014, Freedom forever.”

He said he is 98 per cent confident of victory, after years of waiting for independence.

Asked how he will feel on Friday morning if he gets the win, he replied: “Ecstatic. I will be partying for weeks. “I can’t really put it in words. I can’t say anything I’m that excited.”

His friend Stephen Eskdale, 52, who is unemployed and from the Easterhouse area of Glasgow, said he too believes victory is in sight. “Just seeing today what’s happening — it’s people power and the people are going to win. There’s no ifs nor buts. “This is what it’s all about for me, independence and freedom, and to get rid of Trident, 40 miles away from Glasgow, and that’s got to stop.” ends

Meanwhile the Church of Scotland’s most senior cleric has urged unionist and independence campaigners to join forces to build harmony in the wake of the vote. In the hours after the result both sides must publicly declare that the matter has been democratically settled, the Moderator of the General Assembly said. The victors should then host an event with the key figures from the opposing camp to work on a strategy for Scotland’s future, the Rt Rev John Chalmers said.

With polls so close during the closing stages of the campaign, fears have been raised that whatever the outcome, Scotland will be left a divided nation. Mr Chalmers said the way leading figures in both campaigns deal with the result is crucial in setting the tone, and he called on voters to go to the polls with “cool heads and calm hearts”.

PA