'Yes' Vote Could Force David Cameron Out
Updated: 12:51am UK, Monday 25 August 2014
By Jon Craig, Chief Political Correspondent
A 'Yes' vote in Scotland on September 18 would trigger a political earthquake at Westminster and could even force David Cameron out of office.
The Prime Minister has insisted he won't resign if Scotland votes for independence. But if it does, there will immediately be pressure for him to go from within his own party.
"It will be particularly humiliating for him," declared David Davis, the man Mr Cameron defeated in the 2005 Tory leadership election and who still stalks him from the back benches.
More worrying for Mr Cameron will be the verdict of John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, who says: "A Yes vote would destroy Cameron's place in the history books.
"He would become known as the prime minister who gambled on keeping Scotland in the union and lost his gamble."
His supporters also argue that if anyone should resign after a Yes vote it should be Labour leader Ed Miliband, not Mr Cameron, because Labour is "the big, dominant political force" in Scotland.
Cameron loyalists also claim he will be the best person to "sort out the mess" if there is a Yes vote.
Sorting out "the mess" would include passing a "paving Bill", a piece of legislation enabling Scotland to start the process of becoming independent.
This would give the Scottish government the ability to start negotiating with institutions in the UK and around the world in its own right.
The Scottish government would then begin talks with bodies like the EU, the United Nations, Nato, the Commonwealth and even sporting bodies like the International Olympic Committee.
First Minister Alex Salmond has already been warned these talks could be a very slow process.
At the same time, negotiations would start with the British government on the Scottish independence settlement: what would Scotland get and what would be shared.
The big row will be over the currency. Will Scotland keep the pound?
And on defence, what will happen to Scotland's nuclear bases, RAF stations and indeed the Scottish members of the British Armed Forces?
After all this a second piece of legislation would have to be passed at Westminster to dissolve the Act of Union of 1707 and recreate Scotland as a separate country.
And what of the 2015 election? It would be thrown into turmoil.
So what could happen? There are already calls for voters in Scotland's 59 parliamentary constituencies to be banned from voting.
The Scottish National Party has proposed postponing the election by a year, a move rejected by all the other parties.
And if Labour wins, Mr Miliband could suddenly be plunged into a minority government.
If Mr Cameron survives the immediate aftermath of the result and the pressure to quit, he could eventually get the overall Commons majority he and his backbenchers crave.
Mr Salmond has claimed all this will be settled in 18 months and Scotland will become independent on March 24, 2016.
Given the bitterness, rancour and chaos a Yes vote would unleash, that might be optimistic.
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