The crowd came together slowly in Trafalgar Square, ahead of Monday's pro-Union rally on Scottish independence. Called only three days previously, it was organised by the unofficial Let's Stay Together campaign co-founded by the TV historian Dan Snow, and was rumoured to involve the likes of Eddie Izzard (it did) and Mick Jagger (it didn't). We will know on Friday whether the rally was the dying gasp of a No campaign that for months had looked to be coasting to victory, with approximately 60 per cent of the vote. Polling estimates fluctuate but in the last month the Yes campaign seems to have seized the momentum, leaving the No camp clinging to only a slim advantage.
Though there is an overflow of enthusiasm and bonhomie under Nelson's Column, about the result itself there is little of the self-assurance one might expect. Almost everybody I meet believes that the outcome is too close to call and will say only that they “hope” for a favourable result. Fraser Nelson, editor of boldly pro-union magazine The Spectator, was born in the Highland town of Nairn—as his accent belies—but cannot himself vote. He tells me that if forced at gunpoint to make a prediction, he would say his side is facing defeat. This would have seemed an unlikely prediction prior to YouGov's surprise poll in early September returning a lead for the Yes campaign, but 48 hours before the big day, it is now a perfectly sane one.
The latest YouGov polls now indicate a swing back towards a No vote, but the efforts of the Better Together campaign show real signs of wavering (hence the impromptu rally in its aid). Among its supporters there is a mood of mild frustration about how the argument was conducted, a disappointment that swords weren't sharpened for battle earlier. Liz Carmichael, a 60-something don at Oxford University, echoes the views of others and much of the press when she says, “I think it [the campaign] got off to a slow start; there was a lot of complacency at the beginning.”
But the spirit and energy of the rally are a pleasure to be caught up in, and attendees, clutching their flags and smiling, are more than happy to talk. Swaddled in a Union Jack, an elderly man called Ron O'Keeffe gives an outburst whose passion could teach much to those that have been in charge of the Better Together campaign since 2012: “Napoleon, 200 years ago, tried to destroy our country; the Kaiser tried to destroy it a hundred years ago; Hitler tried to destroy it. And they all failed—that was because we stayed together.” I stumble upon a Scotsman who to my delight is called Donald McDonald, and he is concise in his analysis. “I think the Better Together campaign has been conducted very well,” he says. “This union was created over 300 years ago. Why change something that ain't broken?”
At about 6.30pm, the crowd—which must comprise several thousand people—is rewarded with the voice of June Sarpong, former MTV and Channel 4 presenter, crackling out a hello to the whole of Trafalgar Square. The mild frustration of some attendees gives way on the speakers' podium to rhetoric oozing pride and sentimentality. “That wasn't bad for three days' planning,” Dan Snow later acknowledges, gesturing to the huge attendance.
There is a calm, easy tone to the gathering. Platitudes are greeted with roars of agreement, and call-and-response audience participation is the order of the day. “Can we have a round of applause for the NHS, please?” Sarpong enthuses at one point. Her hosting is unfortunate in that it lends to the event a quiver of triviality verging on farce, instilling more of a T4 on the Beach vibe than one in keeping with an auspicious political rally. Sarpong introduces Dan Snow to the podium, and the presenter elicits cheers from the crowd by naming things around him and pointing out that they were invented by Scottish men: the stone on which the crowd stands; the sandstone from which the statue of Nelson was made.
Comedian Al Murray wins laughs immediately by pointing out that if Scotland joins the EU, “The Proclaimers will have to walk 800km.” The really big guns come out when Bob Geldof arrives, serious and intense as ever. Referring to the relationship between the constituent parts of the United Kingdom, he says, “When one of our blood spills, it all spills.” He ends his rousing speech on the line “It's family and we love each other.” Indeed the event's rhetoric is full of allusions to family, marriage, and love—chiming with national discussion of the referendum. Hours before the rally, David Cameron had warned that Scottish independence “would be a painful divorce”. Minutes later, headliner Eddie Izzard shouts, “We care about you in Scotland; you are part of the United Kingdom family,” as part of a grandstand finale. The No campaign is finally pulling at the heartstrings, refusing to pack their things before a big teary row in front of the neighbours has taken place.
People by and large seem to consider the rally a success but I find one man who isn't part of the consensus. The middle-aged banker, who wishes to remain anonymous, is a Scotsman with a vote, making him part of a small minority in this huge crowd. But something else distinguishes him from the thousands of others. In a sea of Nos, his vote is an implacable Yes.
So unimpressed is he with the No campaign that when Dan Snow asks what the issue of Scottish independence “has to do with us," the man shouts “Nothing” by way of response. So far from the makeshift stage his words become lost in the mass of people but when he has an audience he tells me why the soapy sentimentality of the No campaign doesn't wash with him. “I think if you broadcast that live in Scotland the Yes campaign would go up even higher. It's a middle-class meeting. There wasn't one mention of the poor in Scotland.” Furthermore, he criticises the “scaremongering” tactics employed by some of the parties involved in the debate, including the claim that prices will rise in Waitrose.
After the crowds begin to disperse into the fading evening light, the eccentrics scuttle out into the open. I watch with awe and anguish as a grey-haired woman with a megaphone attempts to serenade people with songs about Scotland. She fights to be heard over Craig David's What's Your Flava? which plays as breakdancers perform behind her. She negotiates with the men, who kindly turn the song off. She then sings Flower of Scotland three times, competing all the while with a bellowing evangelical preacher. Whether this charming but shambolic incompetence will come to symbolise the fate of the Better Together campaign will remain a mystery until Friday morning.
As to the effect the rally will have, it is instructive that even those whom I interview are sceptical as to whether it will solidify the No campaign's lead. Twitter is alive with the cynical sentiment that a rally of this sort will do more to convince voters to vote for rather than against independence. One such critic was journalist Suzanne Moore: “Clearly last nights [sic] “rally” in Trafalgar Square appealed to those who like that sort of thing. For those who dont it was mortifying.” Twitter user Mark Brierley (@MarkBrierley1) says, “I suspect the mass rally in Trafalgar Square LONDON to urge the Scots to vote No is badly judged. Will have the opposite effect.”
Despite the good cheer of the Better Together advocates I met, it is easy to empathise with these online sentiments. This rally garnered the attention it did because it was fronted by public figures who, to put it bluntly, are not Scottish, and who may represent to the Scots the cosy elite so removed from the harsher realities of life in their country. Voters on the fence could well have seen footage of the event and found the call to arms patronising rather than inspiring, intrusive rather than endearing. When it comes to them registering their historic decision on Thursday, it feels a safe bet that the Scots will not have London at the forefront of their mind even if they choose, in Bob Geldof's words, to vote with “a great big glorious 'No.'"
