Quintin Jardine's blog

The day has dawned and the decision is in the process of being made. This time tomorrow, the sun will have risen on a reborn nation, or it  will have set on the hopes of millions of Scots, those who were at home to vote, and those who have been disenfranchised, through being forced to leave their homeland to support their families elsewhere. My friend Fred in Sydney is one such; right now his fingers are crossed as tightly as mine.

What has happened in the last few weeks and months? From my perspective I have witnessed a campaign by Better Together that has demonstrated conclusively that we are not.

It has offered everything to the Haves and nothing to the Have Nots. As its campaign unravelled it has been forced to call in support from so called big hitters from London, the three party leaders setting out a ‘Vow’ which was, in effect a shoddy attempt to bribe us with our own money, and did not survive a single morning’s scrutiny.

It did all this to the accompaniment of the most venal and despicable media coverage that I have ever seen in a lifetime of watching political journalists at work. Better Together has relied on the support of such people as the unfortunate Melanie Reid, who called us ‘Spoiled selfish childlike fools,’ in Murdoch’s Times, and the pathetic Simon Heffer who advised the few Scottish voters who read the Spectator that we are ‘addicted to welfare’ and that we ’embrace the something for nothing society’.

With their army of shoddy hacks behind them Better Together has intimidated the elderly, provoked otherwise sensible Scots into moving their money, pointlessly, from one bank to another, and has ignored the poor and deprived altogether.

That’s how I see the campaign for the retention of the political union between Scotland and England . . . never forget the kingdoms will still be united, under the Crown, with Scotland a strong and active member of the Commonwealth.

How do I see the Yes campaign?

We’ve won the argument beyond doubt, and shown that the many Scots who live in poverty today have only one champion. We’ll know tomorrow whether we’ve won the vote and whether they have a chance of a better future.

The only thing I know for sure, right now, is that when I crossed that Yes box on my ballot paper,  I did so unafraid for my own future, even though I am a man Darling’s people  tried to target on two fronts, age and affluence.

I did so to fulfil my lifelong dream of presenting a Scottish passport to border control officers around the world, but much more than that, I did so because I believe that without independence Scotland faces a continuation of the economic and social decline that has been imposed on us by a parliament controlled by our unloved neighbour from the earliest days of the union that we now seek to dissolve.

I’ve done my part, now it’s up to you, if you have a vote and have yet to cast it. When you do let your cross go in the box marked ‘Hope’, not in the other, marked ‘Fear’. And this too; when you stand there in the privacy of the voting booth, consider the definition of faith, and then show some.