british parliament, where you've come from somewhere else. and we have many parliament members from germany, or from portugal and many other places. how do they identify themselves, all these south asian communities, and great britain. these are all issues that come out on the panel. but they've been part of the debate one way or the other. i want to go to charlie, juliet, and then geoff. but these are great questions. thank you. >> thank you very much for the questions. i'll try and tackle at least some of them. one of my areas of personal research interests, what do the english think. and i've done quite a bit of survey work in england. and i can endorse your comment that -- in a sense, the english do care. when we asked in april, we found 19% of people in england, in a very large survey, who thought scotland should be an independent country.

so a very, very big majority who do not think that. however, a little bit more in line with what geoff was saying, if scotland does vote yes, what we know from that survey is that people in england would be quite strongly in support of a tough line in negotiations towards scotland. so one thing for scotland to say, but if scotland decides to go, then perhaps a little bit of backlash. when i say no urgency note, that is not my no urgency. i think there would be a great danger of the political system saying, we've done that now, we'll move on and start thinking about europe. i do think the -- if we vote no, a more stable second constitutional arrangements for all parts of the uk would be a strong priority. who's voting yes and no? there are some clear patterns

which are quite interesting. men more likely to vote yes than women. younger people, except the very youngest. younger people more likely to vote yes than older people. people from disadvantaged communities clearly more likely to vote yes than people from more affluent communities. and then the national identity question. one of the best predictors we have of voting intention is around those people who feel primarily british in scotland. it doesn't quite so well on the other side, who feel they are scottish. this doesn't lead so directly to supporting a yes vote. there's a territorial dimension to that. a poll was released from the scottish borders this morning, which showed two-thirds in favor of remaining in the uk. so there would be territorial

differences between different parts of skoth land. i don't think that would lead to a kind of irish partition situation. i think given that level of voter registration, given that likely level of turnout, the formal rules which say 50% plus one either way wins, i think will have sufficient legitimacy. >> thank you. juliet? >> i'll just answer a couple questions quickly, so we can get more questions from the audience. the issue of identity. i guess partly being an outsider, i've been struck at how the identity the nationalism, the ethnic identity has not been a part of the debate as much. it's a political debate, about policy preferences on foreign policy, and health care and spending issues. and so it's -- i think the way

that the electorate has been defined in terms of residency has taken away some of that. although some of us can't vote, even though we're residents there. it doesn't extend to americans. on the question of ireland, it is interesting. ireland has kind of looked more towards the uk in this debate than looks towards supporting scotland and independence. and scotland has really reached out to think about cultivating scottish/irisch connections there. and the arctic circle and the north sea. those countries have largely stayed on the sidelines, too, in this debate, probably not just after the referendum, but in the case of a yes vote after negotiations will wait to take up the offer of scott land to be

partners in alliances in that. >> thanks. geoff? >> i think this identity question is incredibly interesting, because as someone mentioned, it's not formally part of the debate at all. it is not on the table. but it is absolutely a fabric of the debate. the scottish identity has shifted in the last couple decades. there are two keys about the scotch identity. one strongly held view of scotland is a distinct different place based on the different education system, different church, different legal system, all these kind of profound deeply rooted aspects of a different place. and the other idea that the one country in the world with whom we share the most is england. there's always been a tension between these two. the last two decades that scottish identity has become much stronger. the things that bind the uk together are also the reasons that have declined, that the uk

was really founded on the empire in a sense, but the thing that kept scotland interested in the uk for a long time. and the settlement, the memory of the second world war, and fascism, the trade union that bound england and scotland together. and the years where things really broke in scotland in a profound sense, that margaret thatcher had really broken up the checks and balances in the way that the political grammer of the way the uk worked. they all played out to give scotland a much stronger sense of identity than they would have had. even though that's not officially on the platform, it's very much one of the driving forces behind the fact that we've got to this stage. you know, and the individualism, some people do retreat into more tribal identities. if you got a wedding in scotland these days, for instance, all

the men of my father's generation are wearing a suit. all the men 50 years under were wearing a kilt. that's something that's -- the way to explain that shift is in scottish society. so identity is not in the manifesto, but the key to understanding what's going on. i quickly respond to the gentleman in front. all i would say is, personally i generally hope you're right, what you're saying about the english opinion, trying to make the case. i would say that you've perhaps been leaving a little bit late. >> i don't think he means you personally. just to clarify. do you have anything to say on this? >> just briefly. i'll mention on your point about general disenfranchisement. i think that's an important point. i make it in the piece that i referred to, that the -- what

scotland is expressing is -- it's often phrased as sort of anti-english. but it's actually more, if you think about it, anti-london. and it expresses frustration, i think, that a lot of the hinterlands of the united kingdom, northern england and wales, and a lot of other areas of the european -- actually, all of the areas of the european kingdom outside of the metropolitan london area and to the south, feel about the english government, that the uk government, this sort of disenfranchisement that they feel from the city, the cultural distance is being created by the very different evolutions of london and the rest of the united kingdom. what the identity of scotland gives them is a language, a vocabulary and institutional platform to discuss that disenfrance chizment that the

rest of the united kingdom doesn't really have. that's why we see the disenfranchisement coming forward most clearly and strongly in scotland. but i think it is something, yes or no, that the united kingdom really should deal with. and i guess urgently. i would share some of the pessimism that was expressed that they really will. >> and i think, geoff, the ft and many other british newspapers have also pointed out that, you know, those divides obviously within the kingdom are not neat either. in london itself, maybe there's a sense of disenfranchisement, london is also divided politically. one of the features of the sato era was the abolition of the greater london council. which was always leaning very much to the left. one of the great battles was

margaret thatcher fighting with the leader of the london council. and for a certain amount of self-determination. i think this issue will take on interesting dimensions as we move forward. i'm sure the ft will be telling us about them. i would like to get some questions at the back. there have been a lot of people waving furiously. so we'll take some questions at the back. >> my name is con tessa from "the new york times" and "london times." what is the impact on business, like banks, if these people vote yes? and what is the impact on the economy, considering many scottish people are dependent on uk for social welfare, social security and other benefits? >> thank you. >> my name is solivana from

barcelona. my question is, do you think that people should have the right to decide their own fate? as a general matter, we had 2 million people demonstrating in barcelona yesterday. but as you all know, the spanish government does not allow the vote for the referendum like the situation in scotland. as a general matter, do you think that any people should have the right to decide their own fate? thank you. >> the question from the gentleman standing right behind you. here, yes, thank you. >> thank you very much. i'm charles schuler, and i wouldn't like anyone to think that my accent reflects any bias. i have a question for the panel. it seems that most of the organizations have published the proportion of don't knows every time there's been a poll. quite often the press has recalculated the polls to reflect them as an absolute confrontation between yes and no.

i saw the brookings succumb to this tendency. the don't knows are quite a big proportion of the poll right now. surprisingly big, for a referendum that takes place next week, 20% approximately. i wonder if the panel could comment on this, and perhaps give some indication as to whether they think these hesitant voters will vote yes or no. thank you. >> juliet did the survey work. but we'll start with charlie to respond to the question. >> thank you. i'll start on that one. that's fairly standard practice when you're predicting elections, to get rid of the don't knows and report figures without them. but it does bring up the question which way the don't knows are leaning. different pollsters are doing

face-to-face polling, you get don't knows. i think people are more reluctant face-to-face to give a fair opinion. the picture we have had from some academic survey research, which is using the same panel of votes as different time points, which is perhaps the most reliable evidence that we have, was that between the two time periods from early this year, and in the early summer, don't knows were breaking towards yes. but in a ratio of, i think 25 to 18. so more or less 4 to 3. and that is perhaps one of the things that we have been seeing in the finding of the polls. but beyond that, it's very difficult to say. i wanted to take notice about the currency. i wanted to take the opportunity to come back to geoff. and to clarify. i am skeptical that there would be a formal currency union.

and i'm sorry if you thought that that's what i was saying. i do think that the sides in the debate have become really quite polarized, and the no side has been so definitive, and some parts of the no side have gone beyond that by saying the next uk manifesto for the labor party will say, we will not have a currency union. it will be very, very hard to move away from that position. what i was suggesting was that there would be an interest in a stabilization process, most likely around an informal use of sterling by independent scotland. perhaps we're seeing the first stages of that stabilization process in the announcements of all of the major banks with headquarters in scotland yesterday saying that in the event of a yes vote, they would move their registered headquarters, if not necessarily many of their activities, to

london, so that there would be a lender of last resort. which is one way of managing some of those transitional issues. and my broader point was that both sides, including the uk, which would be bearing uncertainty around currency, bearing uncertainty about continuity of business, for the many firms headquartered in the rest of the uk, would have an interest in stabilizing, in reassuring, in saying it's all going to be okay. i'm not sure i coined the phrase and who wrote it and i just absorbed it for myself, the sterilization plus some additional stabilization arrangements appears to me to be a more likely outcome than currency union. >> thank you.

>> let me take the cat loan yan question at the back there. and use it as a platform to come back to something jeremy was talking about on precedence and secession. there is a strong international norm for people to have the right to decide who governs them. the principle self-determination is not always obeyed, not always supported by outside groups. but it is a strong and ever-growing power. that's why you see outside actors, even if they're against scottish independence or have worries or concerns about the independence are staying on the sidelines, are not making many public comments on this. i think this concern about the spillover of scottish independence to other secessionist movements is sometimes exaggerated. i was at a really good

conference about this last year. we brought in several experts on secessionist movements, and how they relate to each other. and most of the research shows that they really don't domino effect. that it may be that other secessionist movements use an instance of precedent to push their case. but that's not very -- it's not really successful. and the results of secessionist movements are determined more by local factors rather than what's happened next door, or across the world. and i think secessionist movements around the world would probably use the discussion for a referendum in their movements for secession, regardless of the outcome of the referendum. and i think there is a -- as jeremy was talking about, a clear difference, a case of a mutual decision by west minister

government, and the government to allow this to happen. and this is a fully democratic process without any real conflict, which is quite an amazing thing. and quite a unique thing in international history. >> geoff? >> i'll take on that question, if i may. like short-term impact and medium-term impact. the short-term impact is of uncertainty. just because it will create a huge number of questions about the arrange also of the country. it has to have some economic impact. you can see things like pension fund money being moved south of the border, things are very uncertain, you could imagine people wrau money from scottish banks. especially as they start to get worried about future arrangements. i think there will be a very strong sort of self-preservation institutional movement on both sides of the border, to try and overcome that, to stop the

uncertainty from causing big disruptions in the chief. medium term i would look to what would depend on what currency scotland ends up having. most of them would involve a new scottish government having to enforce a period of austerity, maybe build up reserves, depending on which particular arrangement they have. the wild card would be, though, the oil price. scotland would have a much larger part of its revenue would come from oil, if you had a period of high oil prices that could counteract that. a mixture of both arrangements in the oil prices that would define whether scotland could keep that amount of money in the long term. but the short-term is the big issue at the moment. >> thanks, jeremy. >> yeah, i'll somewhat unwisely weigh in on this self-determination question. i think that the norm national

self-determination is one in which the rhetoric of states has always exceeded the practice. t the -- it's very common for statesmen to get up and extol the rights of self-determination. but if you look at the history of the thing, it's always been very clearly, and i think somewhat consistently somewhat limited in the sense that people have a right of self-determination, but they don't have a right to determine the nature -- the size and scope of the political community over which that self-determination runs. and so it's not legitimate for the brookings institution to suddenly decide that it wants to be an independent country vote to do so, and secede from the united states. although occasionally we've considered it. and of course, this is the issue on which the sumplt civil war was fought. and quite clearly determined

that even if there is a right to self-determination, there is not necessarily a right to secession, especially secession which isn't agreed by the larger political community. and that's been a fairly strong practice, although certainly there are many exceptions. a fairly strong practice even since the sort of rise of a self-determination movement after world war i. >> thanks. i want to bring in a last bit of questions. there's a gentleman standing at the very back, and behind the counter, and the lady at the front. i'm sorry to everyone else. it's just that these individuals have had their -- yes, please. identify yourself. >> my name is kevin, i'm an intern here at brooking. if i understood correctly, i read that if scotland gains its independence, england will not have enough power and influence to play a prominent role in nato.

what does this mean for the united nations? would in the future, and if northern ireland gained its independence, would england be kicked out of the position it now enjoys in the united nations and be replaced by an emerging power like germany and brazil? >> the gentleman behind the counter here, please. and then in the front. thank you. >> i'm steffan grofer. i covered the campaign in canada two years ago, when quebec voted by, i think 50.0 #%, or something like that, to stay in canada. now, ever since this issue has totally disappeared from the political discussion in canada, so my question is, if scotland votes no by a similar outcome, are we going to see a next

referendum next year, in two years, or will this issue fade away? thank you. >> thank you. and this lady here. yes. >> thank you. i'm peggy, i'm the congressional reporter for the hispanic outlook. and i write a lot about immigration. so in the immigration debate, when people start talking about nativism, and nationalism, there is a connotation of anti-immigrant. but i'm not hearing that in this conversation. and yet i was -- went to a political conference two weeks ago, the international and european scholars told me the concept of culturism is dead in europe. people don't talk about it. i'm wondering if this debate is more about big government versus small government, that these huge multi-cultural governments like london are -- they just can't identify to them anymore.

they don't feel like they can control them. so again, multi-culturalism, or big government versus small government. >> thanks. a lot of good questions. i'm sorry we don't have a lot of time. there are a lot of people outside the door. i hope it's another event. i'll give the last word to all of our panelists. charlie? >> thank you very much. quebec, well, quebec did have very recently a government led by the pro-independence party, which was hoping to secure sufficient support to move towards a further round of constitutional discussions. so i don't think things are over in quebec. if it's a no vote, i don't think they would be over in scotland. the first minister said this is a once in a generation issue. i suspect the definition of generation could be reasonably

flexible, depending on how other events go. for example, if scotland votes no, the uk then has a referendum on the eu membership. which has a ukwide majority to leave, but a majority to stay. i think that's a very short political generation, which could revive that debate. i'll leave the other questions for the others. >> let me say something quickly on the immigration debate. i think it hasn't been part of the scottish nationalist movement at all. the snp promises a more liberal immigration policy than an independent scotland than the uk has. it may be that you're seeing the tensions within the united kingdom more broadly that jeremy spoke of, about london versus the rest, or divisions within london. in scotland, this may be being seen in the referendum, and in

the uk the populist parties. on the question of the u.n. quickly, i think a smaller rest of the uk, after a yes vote, would raise more questions about whether the uk has a right to be represented on the u.n. security council. those questions are already raised. and that pandora's box is already opened with no simple solutions insight. so i don't see that it would add to the call, but i'm not sure it would provide any more answers. >> geoff? >> the day after a yes vote for scotland, the brazilians and indians will be more polite about it. they would probably make the same case. the logic has been powerful for a long time and it hasn't happened. we need to organize consensus between the existing five members, and that's never been possible. and it doesn't seem to me any reason it would be more possible

after a scottish referendum vote. the fadeaway question, charlie is absolutely right. even if the nationalists lose, they absolutely made a very powerful case. there is a strong group of support for scotland. if they lose, they'll get 40%, 48%, 49%, the issue will very much be back on the agenda sooner than you might imagine. >> jeremy, any last words? we're going to refrain from trying to tip the scales. i think that nothing that we have said here will tip the outcome one way or the other. and all the poll charts have gone. we know how inadvertently one can win in a debate and make a mess of it. and hopefully what this has done instead is enlighten people on some of the key issues in the debate. we're extraordinarily grateful, again, to charlie and juliet for flying in from ed inbourg, ahead

of these momentous events to tell us what's going on. i hope everybody will be watching this very closely. and thank you so much for participating, you in the audience, in this discussion today. thank you very much again. [ applause ] here just a few of the comments recently received from the viewers. >> i love your program. but you've changed the writing on the bottom giving the name of the people and the place. and it's so small, i have to get up out of bed, i'm an invalid, and walk over there to see it.

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lamb is going to be talking to, who's on q&a. and then the myriad of things that are covered by c-span. i just saw that you're going to have on, i believe you said harding's love letters. well, goodness gracious, am i going to miss that? of course not. but i have to tell you, there are people that just find c-span delightful. and i am an advocate. as i talk to all my friends around the country about these marvelous, these conversations we have, and we're thinking, where did you get this? why are you so animated? well, i'm on c-span for god's sakes. turn it on, the things you see. the making of the hoover dam. the mississippi delta. what in the world did they do to the mississippi decades ago? it's just endless. that's just wonderful.

like a little gift from heaven is c-span. >> continue to let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400. e-mail us at comments@c-span.org. or send us a tweet @c-span. follow us on facebook and twitter. up next, nato's supreme allied commander in europe on the situation in ukraine, and nato's role in combating the islamic militants known as isis. from the pentagon, this is a half hour. >> thank you for allowing me to come back. it's been a pretty busy, and quite frankly, a historical two months since i was here last. as you know, a lot has changed in europe, particularly in our east. the security environment has changed, and has forced us, along with nato, to reevaluate relationships, and specifically our relationship with russia.

the upside is that it also gave us an opportunity to reaffirm to each other in the alliance our steadfast commitment to mutual defense. as i stated the last time i was here, it was indeed a momentous time in europe. but with the support of partners and allies in europe and nato, we will face these challenges like we have in the past, together. and work toward our vision of a europe whole, free, and at peace. over the last seven years from the cold war, to recent operations in kosovo, and libya, the u.s. and nato adapted and overcame huge obstacles and challenges on our path to these successes. in the process, we individually and collectively became stronger. and collectively with our allies and partners, we will blunt any threat directed at our alliance. the public can be assured with their support, we will continue to succeed.

as many of you know, i spoke at the atlantic council yesterday about how nato is going to change as endorsed at our wales summit. if you ask me, i'll be glad to go over those high points in discussing anything you want to discuss. europe, despite the great work of our predecessors over the last 7 oh years, has become a region under tension. russia has forcefully changed borders of several countries by violating their territorial sovereignty. russia has illegally annexed one of them. something we will never acknowledge. and used hybrid warfare to further elicit transgressions which is a danger to their neighbors and a safety and security of europe. further, russia claims and propaganda-like regional names that no longer exist and have no legal standing, nor international recognition, in danger of not only the state that they affect, but people who

live with them. or in them, excuse me. additionally, europe faces with the united states the prospect of foreign fighters bringing their distorted world view and terror skills back to their native countries. the u.s., as the president has stated, will take active measures with coalition partners to prevent any scenario like that from playing out. u.s.-european command and nations will play a significant role in these coalition and u.s. efforts to rid the world of this threat, and this scourge of isil. so that's all i have for an opening statement. and i'm ready for your questions. >> general, according to the nbc news, can you give us an update on how many russian troops are right along the border with ukraine, how many you believe are in ukraine, and your assessment of this almost week and a half old cease-fire. is it holding? is it tenuous?

>> right. so, as you know, numbers are a hard thing to do. i would rather not pin down numbers. i will paint a picture for you, which is that from a peak of well over ten battalion task groups inside of ukraine, i believe we're now down to elements of probably four battalion task groups inside ukraine. the russians have been removing forces to the east of the ukrainian border back into russia. but make no mistake, those forces are close enough to be quickly brought back to bear if required. they have not left the area that would allow them to be either a coercive force, or a force used for actual combat if required. inside of ukraine, we see forces that now are having two purposes. one purpose is to keep the flow of support and supply to the separatists, the forces and

russian forces in the donetsk and luhansk area. those avenues of support will remain wide open. i think the russian forces are ready to ensure that. secondarily, i think we see russian forces are ready to bring great pressure on other areas. currently there is a large force that threatens mar yu pol. it has two possibilities for use. it could sit there and be a coercive force to make sure the negotiations for peace fall out along the lines that russia wants them to fall out, or it could also be used to take mariupol if it's there. these forces are ready to allow them to do either. so i think it's important to say that, yes, some of the force structure has come down. no, none of it has departed. it is all still available.

and the forces that remain inside of ukraine are red toy set conditions to completely support the long-term effort of the separatists in the east. and to either coerce or force the hand in mariupol. so i think the word you use is probably a good one, it's tenuous. we see fighting still erupting. we see the separatists firing on positions. and i think the good news, in the larger construct, it is more -- much more calm than before. but clearly there are pockets of separatists that may have a different agenda. >> i would like to ask you, you mentioned in your opening statement the threat of isil foreign fighters. as you may know, one of isil

terrorists attacked the jewish regime in brussels last may. what could nato do to face that threat first, and secondly, how do you see turkey's role in facing or countering isil? >> so, to your first question. the example that you just brought up is the one that i use many times when i discuss this. are the nations of nato, including our own nation, have been focused on and thinking about these foreign fighters from our nations and when they might return and what they might do when they return. and largely, we were sort of thinking in stovepipes. we've got x number of foreign fighters, and when they return they could be a problem. i think some of our nato nations thought along the same way. we've got a certain number. when they come home, they're a problem. that specific example was a wakeup call, i think, because

that foreign fighter returned to his home country, committed the act and then quickly went across the border into another nato nation. the freedom of movement in the zone is a beautiful thing for a lot of reasons. but it completely allowed this particular individual to move into another nation. so what did that do? as the nations then understood that they have to worry about more than their own foreign fighters. if a foreign fighter returns to a neighboring nation, and then commits an act, or plans, it's easy for them to get across borders into neighboring nations. so our nato nations i think saw this foreign fighter problem was bigger than just a few that they may see forward. so nato has agreed to work on this together. it's already working. sharing of information, and other things that we can do to enable each other to better understand, characterize, and fight these efforts are already ongoing.

turkey is a key ally in our alliance. turkey is on the border with the nation where a lot of these foreign fighters are being trained and utilized. and so they will be absolutely key to stopping that flow. or key to being a part of understanding how to address it. and we see great cooperation from turkey in this respect. >> general, i'm with politico. i have a question on nato. can you give us a sense about the operational tempo for the baltic air policing, and other nato allied warplanes on the eastern border? how often do russian aircraft come across, and how often are there encounters with those forces? and this nato force that was talked about, can you talk about who will decide when, about what is in that force, and specifically what units the u.s. could contribute?

>> okay. to your first question about baltic air policing. and what we see there. the operational tempo of baltic air policing will continue as you see it today as far as the nato contributions to baltic air policing. if you remember, months ago, when we first had crimea, and in this broad concern by the nations, shaped by headquarters was tasked to develop an assurance measure, and they were to be air, land, and sea in the north, center and south. so a comprehensive set of operations. so the air piece is just one of those assurance measures. and what we have done is stepped up such that we used to have one baltic air policing location in shelang, and then we opened a second baltic air policing in amare and estonia. and then we added other

locations where we flew air policing and normal exercises in poland and romania and other places. we will maintain the tasking. it was reaffirmed in the summit that we will have assurance measures in the same capacity and type that we have now. we will maintain those assurance measures until we make the permanent adaptations that are described by the readiness action plan, the rap, as we called it at the summit. you can see that our efforts, which really did a good job of assuring our nations, those assurance measures will remain in effect at the current level until we get the adaptation in. there was a short spike in engagement, but truly, if you

look at the trend of russian flights and engagements in the northeast part of our alliance, they're fairly traditionally normal. we see a lot more activity across the borders in russian aviation, but those are not the aviation that come along the borders, and we have traditionally reacted to as a function of our air policing. do you understand that difference? okay. your second question is about who was going to develop the very high readiness piece. so the -- when the allied command operations are shaped, began the paper which eventually became the r.a.p., we had thoughts about how this would work in general. and our idea was to get to the summit and get the decisions that we needed to make those three adaptations, which you've heard me call as the three-legged stool.

one of those legs is that very high readiness force. and we described it more in purpose and function than in detail to the summit. and the summit completely endorsed and embraced it. so now we start the process that will put the detail on the phones. we have written a second paper which we will deliver to the mccs, the chiefs of defense, next week, which will advance the ball in understanding what the nations believe that force should look like. and we'll have a robust discussion at that meeting about how this force looks in the future. we have agreed to and a clear understanding of what it needs to be able to do, and how we effect that now will be the details we'll work out over the next couple of months. important to remember that i just said our current assurance measures, which has presence in

them, will remain in effect until we get to the permanent adaptation of r.a.p. so we have both an assurance, and a deterrent force forward that will remain in place until we effect the change. >> thanks. i'm with fox news. today general dempsey made headlines when he talked about the possibility of actually putting u.s. combat troops in a combat role on the ground in iraq to assist iraqi security forces, and possibly the peshmerga. i'm wondering if you've done any similar commitments, or the possibility of such commitments from any nato allies to actually put their own combat troops on the ground in iraq? >> so as to what the chairman said, i would refer you to the chairman to get the definition from him on what he said and intended. what i will report is, i think you're already aware of, at the

summit a group of nato nations, not nato, but a coalition of willing nato nations met and discussed commitments on a way forward in western iraq, and to some degree what might happen in eastern syria. and because those deliberations and announcements are not firm, and finalized yet, i would refer you individually to the nations to ask them what they're committed to. >> general, u.s. news & world report. you said something yesterday about, i don't think we can arrive at a peace without russia as a partner. will you expand on why that's so important? and leaving aside the politics of it, what role does nato play in arriving at that conclusion? >> so, yes, i did make this

statement yesterday. and let me just expound on what that means. i think it's fairly easy to understand that for us to prosper together in the european land mass, that is going to need the cooperation, accommodation, however you want to describe it, of russia. the russian energy part of the equation, transportation part of the equation, manufacturing relationships, agricultural relationships. if we're ever going to get to a europe that we describe, whole, free and at peace, and a prosperous europe, we're going to need to be able to work with russia in those relationships. we have been trying for many years, 12 to 14 years, to develop a partnership with russia. clearly the actions of the last four, five months are not the

actions of a partner. so now we have to redefine that. we have it approach how we will go forward, and you see nato and other nations taking those actions, which set the conditions for how we need to be able to relate in the short term. but in the long term, we're going to have to reach accommodation of some sort, and understanding in order, i think, to move forward for a prosperous europe. i think russia has to be a part of a prosperous europe. and so that's kind of what i said. so how does nato fit into that? well, there are a lot of bilateral relationships in nato with russia, which will be a big part of defining the future of fiscally and militarily. we in nato are held together, as you know, because we share common values, common morals. and what we would do is help

build a europe with common values and common morals. changing international borders by force is not a part of that framework. and that's what we've got to work through in the short term. >> general, andrew tillman with military "times." you mentioned a few minutes ago that the assurance measures will continue. does that specifically include the rotational presence of the u.s. forces that have been shifted eastward over the past several months? and if so, can you offer any further clarity on your thinking about long-term force levels in -- i think the last time you were here you said before there was any discussion of maybe ticking them upward, you wanted to put a hard stop on the drawdown that had been under way up until earlier this year. what's the status of that? is there still some drawdown on the table? has there been an implicit hard stop put on that? do you think we might move

upward in the future? >> so the simple answer to your first question about, will the u.s. participation in the rotations in the current force presence continue. the simple answer is continue, simple answer is yes. we, as you know, the assurance measures that we effected very quickly involved european based forces, the 173rd, elements of the 173rd in four locations, the three baltics and poland. those forces will be relieved in october by a u.s.-based force. and i planned to, we were given the task in the summer to maintain these assurance measures until we were able to put in place the longer term adaptations that we agreed to on the wrap. so u.s. forces will be a part of that rotational force that continues and u.s. forces will be a part of that longer-term adaptation.

what i have said several times got yukon forces is -- currently sequestration is the law of the land. sequestration will make all of the services get smaller, as the services get smaller, flrs pressure on overseas forces. currently there are changes to overseas forces on the books and this is a physics problem. those changes are on automatic and will happen and must readdress. i have talked to leadership here, those decisions were made before russia, crimea and i see

that as moving towards a review of those decisions. and the longer term status in the ucon, i have been, quote, on record before, and that is i believe that we still have infrastructure that could be brought down. and i support the eci study that works on that. and i have made my inputs and i think that they have been well heard. # i do not support any force structures, and that's why i asked for those cuts and are automatic should we not take action to effect the sequester. >> i understand you recently met with national guard state officials, that the national guard has this relationship with eastern european countries.

what role to you ascribe that-and do you understand russian concerns that their immediate neighbors are, you know, tying themselves to the united states, which in turn leads to the conflict that we're seeing today? >> first of all, i don't agree with the supposition that you made at the end of your question that these associations lead to the conflict, i don't agree witha. so we do have a magnificent program with the national guards, air and army national guards called the state partnership program. in fact, the state part never ship program between california a and -- our national guards bring an incredible capability to me. why is that? because these relationships that are built in these long-term

state associations with our nations, they build trust, they build relationships, confidence with these four nations. we have young officers growing up in the state of california who are growing up with young officers in ukraine and some of these countries have had these associations for two decades. so these officers and these military have formed long-term relationships which are incredibly valuable. and these state partnership programs are well funded and so as the budget in ucon comes down, and my ability with our active forces to engage with the nations is challenged, we still have a robust program supported by the national guards. and so these are great programs, i have said it now three times, so i'll stop with that adjective. but the bottom line, this is a very strong program that is a large and growing part of our

outreach to many nations. an these are long standing programs, they are not a result of russia, they should not be connected in any way, as you sort of alluded to increases tensions, these are long-term programs which should continue. >> john harper with stars and stripes. you mentioned that you were opposed to further cuts in europe. have you requested additional forces? are you looking to beef that up or are you just trying to freeze the forced cuts. and in reference to isil, the u.s. military is preparing to go after targets in syria. have any assets been moved to turkey to prepare for that kind

of operation? >> okay, to the additional forces piece, i'm a realist. we are in an a age where our budgets are going down, not up. i do not expect and would not spend a lot of energy asking for force structure to move back to europe, i don't think it's realistic to expect. i am very emphatic, we should cease further decrease of forces in europe. now so how do we address the additional challenges which we see? and that is through rotational forces. and the army's program of regionally aligned forces, the ability of national guards to rotate, as we mentioned just before, when the 173rd comes out of the current assurance measures work, a stateside unit will replace them. i think that rotational presence will add the capacities that we

need to address the increased challenge. so the recipe that i see for the future is that we should reduce, cease reductions in europe and then through rotational forces, add capacity and capability as a means to address challenges. quite frankly, the forces that are forward in europe now are working at full speed as part of their normal rotations into afghan and other requirements and their normal taskings as a part of the global force management scheme and what we are going to add on top of that now is a requirement to support the wrap and how we would do that. so i think that calls for rotational forces and their utility. and i believe that the army staff has a great plan for the land plan and we are working through the others now. i think it's completely doable

to raise that -- to meet that increased requirement through rotational forces. so thank you all for being here. >> could you answer the piece about turkey? >> i'm not going to discuss operational details in support of any actions that are going on in iraq and around syria. i think it's inappropriate. thank you. in a few moments a preview of this week's vote in scotland in declaring independence from the united kingdom. in an hour and a half, the presidents of the united statess of iowa and wisconsin talk about

higher education, after that, a forum on the israel-palestinian conflict. the 2015 cspan student cam video competition is under way, open to all middle and high school students to create a 5 to 7-minute documentary on the theme the three branches and you, showing how a policy, law or action by the executive, legislative or judicial branch of the government has affected you or your community, there's 200 cash prizes for students and teachers totalling $100,000. for a list of rules and how to get started, go to studentcam.org. voters in scotland this thursday will decide whether or not to become independent of the united kingdom. the wilson center recently hosted an four half discussion on negotiations being made on both sides of that debate. >> good afternoon. welcome to the wilson center.

i'm samuel wells, scholar here at the center and former director of the europe program. we are pleased to be broadcasting on c-span3 today, live. so i would like to ask that everyone turn off their cell phones so that we're not interrupted either in transmission or in our own thought processes. the wilson center was chartered by congress as the official memorial to president wilson. it is the nation's key non-partisan policy forum for tackling global issues through independent research and open dialogue. the goal of forming actionable ideas for policymakers and the broader policy community. centers program on global europe addresses vital issues affecting europe's relations with the rest of the world through scholars and residents, many of whom just arrived yesterday. seminars, international

conferences, and publications. these activities cover topics such as european energy security, europe's role in setting global standards related to governments and human rights. today we're focusing on a problem that has not existed in some years but is heating up again and that is the issue of sesession, notably scotland on the eve of the referendum for independence.uññxykiññtxi this referendum will occur on september 18th and will decide whether the country will be the first western european state in secede. the only large-scale representative comprehensive

survey in research in scotland will show where the general wisdom of the scott's attitude toward the referendum may be empirically wrong, after showing where the polls stand and what we may expect as polling day approaches, this talk will focus in particular on how the attitudes of scottish people towards international affairs, have often been misrepresented, in particular with relation to the european union, scotland's role in the world and nuclear weapons in scotland. the talk will identify issues that may still move people in either direction before casting their votes. for those of you who see the "financial times," there are three stories today, provoked in part by a poll released on tuesday by the ugov polling group which shows the race as closed and the polls, at least,

to a 53-47 vote in favor of the no. that is, the continuance of the uk. this poll has a plus-minus margin of three. if correct, it's closed quite a bit from the polls of at least three weeks ago, which were showing an average of 18% to 20% gap. it is a privilege today to have dr. john eichorn, chancellor of fellow and social policy at the university of edinburgh school of social and political science. he's funded projects on the future of the uk and scotland. he is investigating the attitudes of scots in relation to this referendum. jan, it is a pleasure to have you here.

we look forward to your comments. he has a power point. we'll go through some very interesting slides which we can then discuss in greater detail. >> thanks very much and thanks for the opportunity to speak about the referendum with you. it is always a great opportunity to speak about it outside of scotland because the discussion becomes a bit more -- let's say slightly more dispassionate and a little more political. especially in the more heateded context that we have right now. i want to give you a very brief background to the study so it is transparently clear where the data comes from. if you have more questions in the discussion, feel free to ask. i am happy to answer math logical questions as well. i want to outline the situation right now and the data from by now 80 polls that have been conducted on this. it is a very heavily polled topic. then want to discuss what counts for voters. a lot has been said and certain topics dominate the political discourse on this topic. what is crucial of course in a referendum is what the voters

think and what really differentiates yes from no voters. our focus is most specifically to look at attitudes toward the eu, scotland's role in the world and also the question of nuclear weapons. finally i close with two short bits. one the issue of referendum turnout which is crucial for the result but also for anyone interested in democracy crucial obviously because we might see certain processes that will last beyond the referendum and the specific feature of this referendum so that the voting age was lowered to 16 and a question might be was that a good idea or not. i'll speak for, at most, 40 minutes so we have quite a bit of time for discussion afterwards. please excuse that i'll rush through some of the slides quite a bit but they'll all be made available afterwards if you want to study them in more detail. the idea is to give you a broad overview so you can pick your paifrt topics for discussions

afterwards. background was already introduced a moment ago. it is now 15 days away. in scotland, people are noticing -- even people like me have been researching this for two years, we all feel, wow, this is actually happening now. we've been working on this for two years. the atmosphere is getting quite tense. for multiple reasons. we have two campaign groups, yes scotland, the scottish national party who are in government at the moment, who have an absolute majority of seats in the scottish parliament, therefore could ask for this referendum to take place. it takes place in agreement with the uk government. it is not one-directional thing. there is an agreement reached that says both sides will accept the outcome of this referendum. if it is a yes vote, scotland most likely will become independent. very few people wouldn't argue that that would be the case. there is the campaign at the core advocating for a no vote and scotland staying if the union. largely made up of the three unionist parties that dominate the westminster parliament -- sorry, the conservatives, labor and liberal democrats.

led by alistair darling, former chancellor of gordon brown's labor administration. the background, as i said, two projects from the future of the uk and scotland programs so it is public funding that funds this research, which means i'm entirely politically neutral. we've been accused by both sides of favoring the other so that shows we are neutral, i think. so i have no particular view one way or another here. the scottish social attitude survey which has been conducted since 1999. our projects and together with other people from the university of edinboro. it is a high-quality face to face survey, the largest and most comprehensive on political attitudes in scotland. that goes through very stringent and robust design processes and with the funding that we receive we could develop large modules with specific questions on the

referendum, but we also have a time series back to 1999 that allows us to check how some of these things have developed since the establishment of the scottish parliament. there is a website what scotland thinks.org where you can access all the data and the data of all the polls that have been conducted. the aim of these projects was to create research output during the debate that's accessible to the public and we've made this accessible through this website. the second project is a specific survey of the under 18 year-olds because there was a lot said when the voting age was lowered, such as young people don't care about politics, they are not engaged, they won't vote. and however, we have no data on them because they usually are not part of the electorate. no representative data at least. therefore we developed a telephone-based representative survey in scotland that was conducted. also one of the parents of the

young person was interviewed and in cooperation with the german think tank for whom i work as well and we've produced the research results but we've also developed a set of teaching materials that's freely available which is another side of how we have engaged on the public side of it debate rather than just producing research for academics. i want to start talking about the actual results. what is this situation right now at the beginning of september. the first graph simply shows you a plot of all the polls that have been conducted since the referendum question has been agreed and the question is -- should scotland be an independent country? i already got my voting ballot for postal vote and it says it on there that two options -- yes and no. very simple. what you see here is on top an orange, the no. the bottom in blue, the yes. these are all the opinion polls that have been done. what you see is there's no single opinion poll apart from one that was commissioned by the snp. all polls show no was in the lead. that's consistent.

what we also see however is that it might look like it is a bit narrower toward the end. what it also looks like is that there is a lot of volatility actually in the polls. that, however, is not true. why there is so much difference even within time periods is that the different polling institutes have come up with very different results, very different base lines. some polling institutes that consistently polled at the lower end for the yes vote and some at the higher end for the yes vote. reason why it is so difficult to poll -- i'll show this later -- is that turnout in this referendum is expected to be very high. that means that a large number of people that usually do not vote at all in any elections will be taking part. of course, doing polling and weighting of groups that you don't really know very much about is difficult. that's the reason why polling institutes have come up with different results.

it is very hard to say which ones are right. obviously the polling institutes themselves always say we have the best methodology but it is very hard to assess this. we usually use the average. it doesn't mean the average is right but it gives us maybe the best view.for the period since the question was agreed, the yes and no vote once the undecideds are taken out from these polls, you can clearly see first, in 2013 basically nothing happened. the polls stayed stagnant. about 61%, 62% no, and the opposite for yes. it was at the beginning of 2014, end of 2013, beginning of 2014 when we saw the biggest shift up 3% to 4% in the polls. all the polls saw an increase for yes. the subsequent months, there was very little movement again. so in about april, may, not much happening.

there was about another percent that, yes, gained, but not very much. again, much more flat the process. then in july and august we saw a bit of an increase but most crucially this is just the view of all the polls that have been conducted in august. nine polls have been conducted if august. again it looks like there's a lot of volatility but that's again the difference between the polling institutes. remember, some polled closer to 40% for yes, some closer to 45% or above. what is most crucial the last four polls that have been conducted all saw an increase in the yes vote. and most crucially the poll mentioned just -- the poll just mentioned yesterday by ugov is probably the most interesting one. a single poll in itself doesn't say very much, but it is so important because ugov institute's had most recently close 40% yes vote and now polling closer to 47% yes vote. these polls are not perfect.

but, we have clearly seen a narrowing of the gap so that we are now looking, on average, of at least 45% to 55%. most recent polls polling 47% to 53%. this race is definitely a close race at this stage still. that's the very recent data. but this take bait has been going on in scotland for some say 300 years. i'm not going back as far right now, i'll just focus on the process since scotland saw devolved parliament. people's preferred option for scotland's governance, people could say scotland should be independent of the uk, outside the eu. i'll summarize those as independents. people could say it should be part of the united kingdom but

with an own parliament. i'm summarize that as evolution. and they could say it should be part of the united kingdom and please get rid of the parliament again. that was a terrible idea basically. that's no devolution. on the top you see those that favor devolution, at the bottom, those who say no devolution. what's very clear here is independence was never the favorite option when asked in this survey. some of the people who said devolution say we would like more devolution than we've had at the moment. i'll come back to that in a bit. but what's clear is that independence was always somewhere between one-quarter and one-third. most interestingly, it dropped to about one-quarter, actually the lowest levels were measured in -- since 2007 which is when the snp became part of the government. why if more people vote snp does the support for independence go

back people evaluate the devolution settlement better since the snp is in power. this shows you people's evaluation of whether scotland gets its fair share of public spending. before 2007 what was always the case, majority of people said it's less than its fair share of spending. since 2007 the proportion that says less than its fair share or pretty much its fair share are equal. that's effectively a success of the scottish national party so people have a more positive evaluation. obviously if people have a more pos ittive evaluation of devolution, it might be the time for independence. we see a second graph. it is a question that asked who benefits more from the union -- scotland or england. no surprise by the way if you ask this in england, you get kind of the opposite view. but before 2007 a larger group used to always say england benefits more than scotland. obviously quite a few people say both benefit equally.

since 2007 that has become much more even. however, since 2011 here we've seen a separation again and more people saying that england benefits more from the union might not be completely surprising considering since 2010 we have a conservative government again in england and obviously the conservative party is not particularly strong in scotland. they only have one member of parliament at westminster from scotland at the moment. okay. that's just the big picture. what some of the long-term trends were, and what is happening right now. but crucially is the question -- what really counts for the voters. i'm going to start by using an absolute overused quotation, but it is the economy. it's very, very clear. nearly everyone who thinks scotland's economy would be better if scotland became independent indicates that they vote yes. nearly everyone who says scotland's economy would do worse indicates that they would vote no. that's nearly a perfect relationship.

i teach statistics classes at university. i will be using that as a real life example if the future of a near perfect correlation. we can see that this clear crystallization of the vote has increased throughout the referendum and this has become the dominant issue that relates to people's evaluation. nothing else splits the yes and no vote as clearly. even in 2012 in the red bars, you see that those who said scotland's economy would be a little better, only about half also supported independence at that point. now that is 80%. so it is very clear, people -- even if they only think it would be a little better, they are basically nearly all voting yes. so there's a clear crystallization of this process. on the other hand, esee the same for those who have a more negative outlook on this issue. the economy differentiates or yes and no voters better than any other variable. i'll come back, as i said, to

the governance options. now if we don't use the word independence but genuinely ask people what is your ideal for how scotland should be governed, then we can say the scottish parliament should decide everything -- basically independence. or we could add an option that offers effectively max misdemeanor devolution. uk government should decide on foreign defense and the scottish parliament about everything else, including taxation. that's the most strong proponents of maximum devolution are suggesting. what is crucial here is that those who say the scottish parliament should decide everything for scotland, ie, the people for home the ideal would be that scotland would govern itself that number has increased substantially from 31% in 2013 to 41% in 2014. that's a big jump of people who say my ideal is that scotland governs itself. however, i call this group the independent sympathizers.

not only aebl liesing those people the scottish parliament should decide everything themselves, of them, only about 56% indicate that they vote yes in the scottish social attitude survey. a small group says, 10%, no. 33% indicated this is data from may to july when the survey was conducted that they were still undecided. that group has gone down a bit overall but it is still a sizable group that kols in here. some undecideds have leaning toward yes or no but say they haven't made up their mind yet. that's not a small group. so the people who have as the ideal that the scottish parliament should decide everything, but who at the same time are not indicating that they definitely vote yes are 17% of all respondents at that point. that's still 13%, 14% of respondents now. there's a really sizable group that is not acting on their ideal of scottish self-governance. and why is that. you might not be surprised -- it's because of the economy.

on the left is those independent sympathizers that indicate that they would vote yes. as you can see, nearly all of them think scotland's economy would be better after independence. on the right are those that say scottish parliament should decide everything, but either indicate that they would vote no or that they are not fully decided yet. there is a much more mishgsed picture. very few are convinced that scotland's economy would do well. crucially what this says is, even when people have the ideal of scottish self-governance, if they're not also convinced that scotland's economy would do well, they might not act upon this ideal. this economic issue is really kind of super imposed on quite a lot of other issues, for not everyone but the majority of the voters. there are a few other issues though that are not as strongly related but also very strongly related. one is the issue of social inequality. that hasn't always been the case. there is the myth that scotland is a much more left leaning society than england. they are in terms of voting more

likely to vote labor, for example. but if you actually analyze people's views, public attitudes towards benefits, for example, then scottish views are only a few percentages more left than english views. so voting and views are not always coming together in the same way that other factors might come in. that was no surprise that in 2012, only about half of those who thought scotland would be a more equal society also indicated that he they supported independence. but now in 2014, we are looking at 80%. this is an issue that the yes campaign has been focusing on, social inequality, and it is an issue that polarizes voters much more now than it did before. that's a success on the yes side. another issue people care about is scotland's role if the world. people who thing that scotland's voice in the world would be a lot stronger, by a lot, tend to vote yes. not as strong again as the

effect we have seen for the economy, but it matters clearly. but it doesn't matter as strongly. those who only think it is going to be a little stronger are not fully convinced. and so there's something going on. so peel care about scotland's role in the world, and i'll come to issue about the eu and nuclear weapons in a little while, but it is not as strongly related as the valuations about the economy. this is what you get when you put the different factors into regression modeling so that you can control for all the other factors because they are related to each other, of course. the most -- then we can look what has the strongest effect. the top four issues that differentiate yes and no voting are all issues that reflect on what people expect would happen to scotland after independence. it's pragmatic evaluations of what they think would happen. the number one issue is the economy. then scotland's voice in the world. the pride of scots. then the development of an equality. then there is a substantial gap

in kind of the size of the effects. then we get national identity. i'll come back to that in a moment. so national identity is correlating to yes and no voting but much less strongly than the economy inequality expectations or expectations for scotland's role in the world. what's also much less strongly correlated are demographic issues. men are more likely to vote yes but that correlation is much less strong than these pragmatic evaluations, for example. german journalists always tepid to be a bit disappointed when they come to scotland and report about it because they expect more people with blue face paint shouting freedom, i have the feeling. but that's not how the debate goes, by and large. that has to do with national identity. crucially, most scots have always recorded that to some extent they're scottish and to sol extent they're british.

most people report national identity combinations. there are very few people in scotland who say they are more british than scottish. . those only 10%. that's hardly increased. scotland has not become less scottish. some people are saying national identity is very strongly scottish still. however, the group that says here in green that they are equally scottish and british has gone up. the group that says they're only scottish at the bottom in blue has gone down to one-third to only one-quarter. scots are less likely to emphasize their scottish identity over their british identity. but still they are much more scottish than british, overall. that's how this relates to the referendum view, to support for scotland becoming an independent country.

there is a correlation. on the left those who say scottish, not british. but even in 2014 only 60% of those who said they are scottish and not british at all indicated that they supported independence. and so this relationship, while there is a correlation, is much less pronounced than the previous correlations that i have shown you. national identity matters but to much less the extent of evaluations that show what will actually happen to scotland. now, the european union obviously related to those issues. it dominated the media debate. it dominated the political debate in january and february in scotland. very much. the better together side emphasized the issue of the european union affairs very much. there was a statement by commission president barroso at the time saying scotland would have to re-apply. there's been implications about spain and belgium are going to veto scottish membership, although while a lot of spanish politicians have commented that they would not make this an automated process, the spanish foreign minister has also stated there wouldn't be an automatic veto.

it would be a particular process. the scottish parliament had had a long hearing process and consultation on this issue with experts and the key thing is the experts don't really agree, even former judges of the european court of justice. in terms of what the process is. most people agree there wouldn't be an automated opt-in. it wouldn't be that scotland just becomes a member but most people also agree scotland wouldn't probably be out, partially because as we know, decisions in the european union are not just legal decisions but also political decisions. the question is does any country really have an interest of scotland ever being outside of the european union considering the strong movements of students, considering that scotland has the largest fishery grounds within the european union which, for example, the spanish fleets are accessing. so there is a lot of debate around this issue. but what is pretty clear is most -- as much as there is disagreement among academics on this, there seems to be agreement that neither the extreme side on either part of the spectrum is as rigid probably in reality as it is.

so there probably be would be quite lengthy negotiations but there's also a high likelihood that scotland would become part of the european union. however, i'm happy to talk more about this but that takes me away from the discussion of people's views. but that's a very interesting legal debate and political debate. but the question was, well, why didn't the polls go up for the no side when basically this fear of scotland being part of the european union were made. the majority of scots clearly would like an independent scotland to be in the european union. so it's over 70% that say scotland should be -- or just around 70% -- that say scotland should be a part of the european union if it were independent. but it is not a vote decisive issue. therefore, yes supporters and no

supporters have virtually the same position on scotland's role in the european union. both groups would want an independent scotland to be in the european union. and it doesn't move people because scotland, despite being slightly more pro european, more europe friendly than the english, so the proportion that ones for britain to leave the european union is much lower in scotland than it is in england, but there is not the kind of passion about europe and scotland either. as you can see, over 50% of scots -- that's the blue and red over here -- in 2014, over 50% say either scotland should leave -- sorry, britain should leave the eu or it should remain in the eu but the competences of the euro should be reduced. we want to retransfer power back to the member states. that's not europe loving if over 50% want reduction of the eu's powers, what that says for scotland, the majority of scots yes want to be in the european union, yes and no voters both want to stay in the european union by and large but they want

to do this for pragmatic reasons. because they see that's good. it is not because of some inherent passion for europe which sometimes, especially continental media try to portray scotland as. so that's clearly not the case. a similar issue that has gotten a lot of traction, a strategy recently launched in the tv debates was the currency issue. the yes side says scotland would definitely be able to continue to use the pound because that's the no side says we will not negotiate. you will not be able to use the pound. now those two things are basically as far apart from each other as possible. however, for the scottish electorate, when these interventions were made on the currency, the polls didn't shift towards no. why is that the case? well, even amongst those who want independence, 77% would like to keep the pound.

so this is again an issue that not divides the voters very, very much. furthermore, we asked a second question in our survey which was -- what currency do you think scotland would use if it became independent? now often about 80% say they would like the pound. only over 50% say they think they would get to use the pound. you'd think those peel who would like it but think they can't get it would be more likely to vote no. but they aren't. now people are not moving on this issue very much and the core reason for that is, they simply don't believe either side. the majority of people thinks that george osbourne and the no side are bluffing to have a stronger position in the negotiations afterwards. but the majority of people also doesn't believe alex simon when he says they're definitely doing this, come on. so people are not acting on things that they think are completely uncertain basically. and that is why this has not moved people when these interventions were made.

nuclear weapons. the other big issue that would have to be negotiated with the u night kingdom, because as you might know, the nuclear weapons of the united kingdom are based at the facility near glasgow in scotland, nuclear submarines base and where several of them are always out. yes campaign has advocated very strongly for the removal of nuclear weapons from scottish soil and waters. it's been hard. some people campaign on that issue in particular. however, public opinion again is not as clearly divided on this. there are around 40% of scots that would be quite comfortable with nuclear weapons staying in scotland if the uk government paid a high fee for it. well, that's not exactly how we asked the question but that's kind of how i feel that they might read this. here's the split by yes and no vote on whether people agree that britain's nuclear weapon submarines should continue to be

based in scotland. now amongst the no supporters, there are more that say those weapons should stay. about 46% compared to 35% on the yes side. but that's far from a perfect relationship. so even amongst the yes voters, there is a substantial group -- if you take those that say i neither agree nor disagree, 50% don't oppose nuclear weapons in scotland. this is far from a perfect relationship. again, it is an issue that matters for certain parts of the electorate. some parts of the electorate that really campaign and care about this issue more than anything else, but it is not vote decisive for the majority of the electorate. okay, that's the big overview. i promised two short bits at the end that i think are really important though in terms of also looking at scotland, democracy and political participation beyond the referendum itself. first question is, who is going

to vote in this referendum? well, simple answer is -- a lot of people. now voting turnout in the uk is not particularly high. in the last westminster election, only 64% of scottish electorate took part. in the last scottish parliament elections, it was just over 50%. in our polling -- and even the scottish social attitude survey. we know polls report higher levels but the scottish social attitude survey only predicted 60% voting turnout for this. it wasn't very far off the actual result in the scottish parliament elections. scottish social attitudes pretty good, it's pretty close to these results. in the survey conducted may to july, we had three-quarters that said basically we are certain to vote at 87% that were in the likely to vote group. now that's a lot. there's nothing -- there's no precedent in previous decades in uk politics that would indicate any such high turnout. recent polls indicated up to 80% turnout. that is an all group -- amongst

yes, no and also amongst undecided. sometimes i'm asked are the undecideds just people who have no interest in voting. now, even amongst them, a lot of them will take part. there is a slight advantage for yes. so yes has a slightly higher reported likelihood of turnout. if you weighed the responses for this -- that's imperfect -- but you would get an extra two percentage points for yes. now if we are currently looking at a 47%-53% split, you know what that means. that we don't know obviously where the 47%, 53%, is exactly accurate. but this matters obviously. the actual vote result is not just function of the polls but it is a function of views and voter turnout.

so it matters but it is not a massive difference. what is really crucial is that this referendum has activated voters that usually do not take part. i use this as an example to illustrate this. this is from the last scottish parliament elections. voting turnout by age. the youngest age group had about 30% turnout only. the oldest age group had 80% turnout. that's a massive gap. this is what we get from the survey for the likelihood of turning out for the referendum by age group. we hardly have any gradient as all. there is still a little bit but it is much narrower than it was before. we find this for a range of social/economic variables. gaps that exist are not completely closed in turnout but they are narrowed substantially. that is people of lower socioeconomic class are more like to turn out. people less politically interested, more unlikely to turn out. people who are not associated with any political party, more likely to turn out. so these gaps don't disappear but a lot of people participate that don't usually participate in an electorate of 4 million, we estimate maybe half a million

to 1 million people who don't vote that suddenly vote. that makes it hard to predict what they are going to do, because if you poll, you have to weight your results obviously. these groups that are traditionally underrepresented in any poll or survey, they are less likely to take part in polls or surveys. you can adjust through weighting but how do you weight through a population whose political behavior you don't really understand. it's difficult. that's why i say it is very hard to say which of the polling institutes are having it right. it's really difficult to assess that side. this is from our survey. in the survey we still had 33% undecided. that sounds like a lot. however, here's a note of caution. it depends how you ask the question. a lot of polls only get 10% to 12% undecided. the reason is, you can ask either what would you do right now? then you only get 10% to 15% undecideds, even back in april, may, because people would say

that's my leaning right to you. if you are asked, well, haven't you made your mind up completely? if you give that opportunity explicitly, you still in the polls get up to 25%. but then about half of those people have a leaning to either yes or no. in the survey a few months ago that was evenly split between yes and no. most recent polls have shown that the movement from undecideds is stronger to yes than to no which is what we have seen just now in those polls. that's how this is complained. many undecideds who have moved to yes over the last one or two months. but even within this we found that there is a group that doesn't indicate any particular leaning. so genuine undecideds or people who don't want to disclose what they're doing. that might be as well in this survey. that's about 12%. some polls find this now to be about 10%. you might say, well maybe that's the group that is not going to vote. again, about 70% of that group indicate that they are certain to vote. so we still have 6% to 7% at least of the electorate of whom we don't know what they will do.

so even with all the information, the narrowing of the polls, there is a group -- it is a small group of people, that's normal before every election, but we don't know what they do. if they go back to no, we're back to 40%-60%. it is very likely they'll all go in the same direction but there is a degree of uncertainty that we cannot get rid of and polls are never predictions. so if in the end it's 40%-60%, were the polls wrong? no, they weren't wrong, if there were 60% no. would the polls be wrong if we got 55%? no. this is the outer margins of probability i'm talking about here. but if we narrow that and we look at a range between 44% and 52% for example yes. i don't want to make a guess on

what will end up in the referendum. there is a degree of uncertainty that we simply can't get rid of. it would be strange, but we're dealing with people after all. just briefly to say, men are slightly more likely to have made up their mind on the raef republican dumb. and the parties that -- the -- take that figure with a note of caution because there are very few liberal identifiers in scotland at the moment and obviously people with more political interest who have more interest in the referendum are more likely to have made up their minds. but please note, there are very few people who say this will not affect my life. very few people fall into that group. just to give you a rough

profile. it doesn't matter, it's each occupational class. the decision is not higher than people from semiroutine occupations. the final bit, very quick, four or five minutes, and then i will have stuck to 40 minutes. i want to briefly comment on the change of the voting age from 18 to 16. first of all, the younger voters are not particularly swayed by the notion of independence. in 2014, we only had 28% yes when the undecided were taken out of this age group, which was lower than even the lowest yes poll at that point. again, that's a poll of 1003% error margins. even at the lower end. in 2014 now, we had 36% yes vote, so it's gone up for everyone. but still has lower than the

average population for the youngest voters. their political interest, however, is not lower than the average political interest for dpu adults. but you can see the political interest for the young people and for the adults. and what we pretty much see is the distributions look fairly similar. so young people, at least are as politically interested than adults. there is a small group with no interest at all. but you have a similar group in adults. i always say that when people say to me there's some young people really don't care. i say it's a really small group, but you also have a small group of adults that don't care. looking at the lower levels that i showed you earlier, for the youngest age group, in 2014, amongst those under 18 that are eligible to vote, 72% are in the unlikely to vote group, with a further 15% who indicate, i don't know yet. so only 12% say they're unlikely

to vote. if you had asked this before any previous election, you would have had the majority up here in the unlikely to vote group. # absolutely right, i'll correct this before we upload this, thank you for spotting this. you're absolutely right, it should at the bottom say very likely. thank you for spotting that. that's slightly embarrassing. but i'll correct it before it's uploaded. we have 72% that say rather likely or very likely. that's at the bottom. thank you. the most decisive factor for the ying people, however, again and i'll sound like a broken record here, is the economy. nearly all of the young people say, you know, the economy will do better, indicate they'll vote yes, nearly all who think the economy will do worse, will vote no. so for the young people, this is again the most decide sif

factor. how do they claim that they're someone les likely to vote yes. why is the tie against them if they actually map fairly similar. there are two differences. remember i said, national it'siit' identity is not the top priority, but it does matter to some. very few pay for their britishness over their scottishness, but the group says i'm equally british and scottish, they are higher, much larger proportion than for the adults. so the young people are less likely to pay for their scottish identity over their british identity. doesn't mean that they're scottish, but they -- this less prioritization within one set of borders, translates also to the european union. remember 55% of adults said we should remain in the eu or at

least reduce the eu's powers. there're already that different in the 18 to 24-year-old who already have a higher likelihood to say, reduce powers. the under 18-year-olds are the first generation that has, and i'll talk very placatingly. the first computer they probably remember sitting at had access to the internet. their parents probably ordered things off -- the 22-year-olds probably remember the first time they went to a computer that now was connected to the internet. the first time they opened a web browser, and that was something special. you're looking at a genuine generational shift here, where

there is less of prioritizing one over the others. so they're very comfortable in saying, i'm scottish, british and the number of that actually identify as european has gone up as well in this group. still a relatively small percentage buzz three times as large as among the adults. that's just to the overview, i hope it gives you a lot of starting points for interesting questions and discussions. >> well, you certainly demonstrate that the economy matters. let me just clarify one thing on methodology. you indicated that the polls, one of your, i think the scottish social attitudes was a face to face. >> uh-huh. >> among the other polls, were some of them conducted by

telephone? >> there's six main calling institutes, so they use large panels, 300,000 people. we have one institute that has ran demeanor digit tiling for telephone dialing. it's a pretty good method in scott land because we have 80% land lines in scotland. you have to do -- we waited for parental education as a proxy for socioeconomic status and got quite a distribution there. so it works relatively there. but then online calling -- young people are only half as likely to take part, young people don't take to take part in any surveys. there's one that uses a matter that the other institutes abandoned after the 1992 westminster election because many of them got it wrong with

that method. it doesn't mean the method is wrong. >> thank you for that. we can move now to questions and comments. i would like to start with kent hughes, who is the founder of our scottish and celtic -- >> i want to ask a quick question, one quite broad and i want to start by thanking you for really a very stimulating discussion with a look at very different groups and how you did them and the surprise in some case where is their intentions seem to be. number one is for thinking about the eu more broadly. we are very aware about the collapse of so many empires

after world war i, yet there's still bits of empire left. should the eu think about a pan-eu policy which would allow greater cultural and political autonomy, while still staying within the eu? the second question has to do with the pound. couldn't scotland, if it absolutely were unable to use the pound, simply decide to dollarize as ecuador and el salvador and panama have done. and third, this goes back to the focus on american style politics and it was an enormous pleasure to hear an issue that had been more thoroughly polled than americans are used to. the get out the vote, the gop, is there a sophisticated system? is each party identifying likely voters, going to get them to the polls and so forth?

>> right, great questions. i'll talk about the first one. yeah, i mean obviously the issue, as i said earlier, i mean i simplified the european issue, you could do a talk just on the european economy, obviously there's strong interest, we go a lot of public briefings in scotland and the banished -- and surprisingly, i think obviously the eu needs to think about that, especially if it had a strong emphasis on autonomy and the europe of the regions, this catch phrase that never really came -- people don't feel really the europe of the regions and most places. and the member states, the re-emphasis of summits over the past year, is probably the other direction that give people the feeling that you would secure the regional interests at the moment. so i think, you're absolutely

right, if the eu would like to make itself, let's say relevant in this context, i think that's where they could be a moderator. but i do also want to stay, in relation to the scottish context, there is

somewhat different to some of the other cases, and crucially, it is one that has been by the process, has been agreed with the uk government. i agree that there are things for you to involve itself, in a moderation function, i would say. i do think we have to careful to not to, conclude too much from the contacts, they are others. commissioned an independent commission, with several people, now, with commissions, you ask, who did they pick? joseph stiglets, he cree teaked uk policy in recent years. overall, they suggested the union is the best option. that is the favorite option in the polls, obviously. anyways, it is, i leave others

to comment on that. they came up with other options, one that is outlined. evaluated as a higher risk, in terms of not having control because of not having a central bank for example. others said, an option would be a scottish currency. the question is how do they do on the market. after independence, the uk government, whatever government it would be, didn't negotiate on currency, they would have to come up with a different option. the first minister said they would consider in that situation to simply continue using the pound. then, not take it, scotland wouldn't take a chair off the debt of the uk. he said it won't come to this, if we -- there is some talk about this. this is one of those issues that will know if scotland becomes

independent, it will be at the top of the negotiation process. the final one, the interesting thing about this referendum is it is not much about political parties, some of the debate is of course, one of the reasons why a lot of people are voting is because they are not voting for political party. this is one of the reasons why it is easier to mobilize people. the question s how is that momentum capped afterwards, it sent just the voting. you can go to town hall meetings, in villages, towns, that concept pretty much died before. civic events, school events, the debate voter registration is

close to 80%. which you would normally would never get. what exacted figure is, i don't know of course. i think we can be confident this will turn-out will be higher. there has been such a strong emphasis from everyone on it. >> gentleman in the back, identify yourself, please, wait for the mike. >> thank you very much. sir. >> it is okay. >> all right. >> john gizzy, chief political correspondent, news max. my question both related to politics, you mentioned earlier the flemish, and other break-ups that would be in the works is

there any vad mir putin is looking at that to look at crimia leaving ukraine or the new state he talks about. second question. what would happen to the members of the house of common, and the house of lords, who come from scotland, and would this have any impact on the british elections scheduled for 2015? >> first question, i don't remember if it was putin or some other russian politician, look, scotland is doing it, why can't we? i haven't much though. i don't think what skolt land does would stop from russia is doing at the moment.

scottish independence referendum is the agreement of the elected government of scotland and the elected government of the united kingdom. it is mutually agreed by mutually elected government. therefore, even if the argument were invoked, i think it would be a parallel that could not be used. since the polls narrowed, this has been discussed one more, in english newspapers, if scotland became independent, strong for scotland, the rest of the uk. the scottish government said it would take 18 months, until inside day, negotiating entering the european union and nato. the most sympathetic that look at public affairs say that is

very ambitious. most people say, again, others can comment on the feasibility that is not my area of expert based on the scotland act, 2012. if they have so many things there are a lot of people

talking about it. whether it is a yes vote, or no vote, and will have traction over the next few year, it will become an issue two types of voting in westminister. so, that debate over the next few year, in england. definitely. england parliament that is very unlikely. there are a few other possibilities, that is another aspect that comes into it. so, it will affect it. obviously, what will happen on independence day. the scottish will leave westminister, what does it mean, if it results in an the government loses a piece it needed for a majority. new elections.

hard to predict. arrangements within the uk ta are going to follow. >> i want to call on william hill, who can partially deal with the question of mr. putin. >> a fellow here at hillen institution. maybe it could serve as an inspiration for valdimir putin, for others in the northern caucuses. ukraine is not the only state that has experienced similar yearnings by smaller units, as

for scotland, i am curious, in your data, it didn't come up here. perhaps vut perhaps you don't. about who votes, whether there are splits in geographically terms, first, you have, you are not in scotland, you are voting. presumably a certain number that work elsewhere in the uk, have the right to vote in scotland. then, within scotland, are there geographical divisions, one old saw, about the differences in political presences between eddinburrow and glass koe. i was wondering if it shows up geographically within scotland? >> yes. the franchise that is used for the vote is the same franchise use--ed for the scottish parliament. i think was smart. it is a franchise that has been agreed, buon