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, built on political culture in scotland, it sent too contested. which is good.

and everyone who lives in scotland, permanent residency in scotland, qualified commonwealth citizen gets a vote. i am german, the accent never goes away. i am german. i have residency in scotland. i lived there for five years, once you get permanent residency you get to vote. if you are a scott that moved to england, you don't get a vote it. is the same for the scottish parliament. some don't like that, obviously it is not majorly contested because, this is the scottish parliament franchise. some didn't like that it is an agreed franchise. the idea, who lives in scotland, votes, that includes, i think 10% now of people who were born in england. for example, who have residency in scotland. that is the voting franchise, the only change was the lowering of the voting age to 16.

that is a cross party consensus. geographically splits within scotland, we do see splits, there was a pole in glasscow, the crucial thing is. for example. the people who live more socially deprived circumstances. those have all narrowed a bit. if you have an area with high deprivation, you have more yes voters. therefore, if you have a city or council with more socially deprived residences, most of the graphically variances that we see are the populations in those region.

>> one or the other feel they are pulled down.

>> people born outside and in england, immigration in scotland has increased tremendously. eastern europe, with the new there weren't enough people in scotland. and in several other sectors, the other thing is, scotland needs migration, more so than england. scotland is more rapidly aging over the next few decades, demographic problem, smp clearly

states, they want more open immigration as the rest of the uk that started to restrict immigration heavily. scotland, based on scottish nationalists, wants more open immigration policy. higher than in the rest of the uk. a lot of people in scotland, show that scotland's contribution to the assets of the united kingdom is greater as the population as well though. long-standing debate. generally speaking, most by the institute of physical studies.

other western european countries are facing as well. if scotland becomes independent, there are loads of scenarios, they depend on variables, it is difficult to say how it pans out. the middle of those scenarios effectively say, scotland would be able to function as an independent country, it wouldn't be the land of milk and honey. in terms of increasing welfare, reducing taxes, that is probably is not possible. it is probably somewhere in the middle between the stories, it depends on the price, it depends on, for example, scotland has a strong financial sector. the most important financial place. the largest financial center in the uk, larger than westminster

or birmingham ham. some said they may consider moving to england f they do this, what does it mean. more companies say they would invest in scotland if it becomes independent it is hard to access. there are risks and opportunities t depends on external influences, oil price, how much oil is in the north sea. how much is taken out. which you have conflicting view, some put it at the top. if you take the advantage on all of these, you get the image, it is basically, probably a country that would have the same sort of problems that a lot of others have. increase welfare, you have to increase taxes, or cut something else. i sound vague, i know that if you read all the economic evaluations, you have to be vague there, are substantial

risks and opportunity that come into it. >> does the north sea oil belong to scotland? >> the oil contributing to the uk, the oil revenues are going to the uk, 90% would be in scottish waters. >> gerald chandler. could you tell us if you have data on things you haven't talked about. how many scotts live in england, are they in favor of independence. and how much mixed couples are there, british, english, married scotts, what are they thinking? >> research group naweals did a survey of the english, i am sure they have a variable in there, i only lookad the headline. i haven't looked at the data yet. sorry about this. i can tell you that the english who live in scotland, 10% of the

population, you won't be surprised the majority intends to vote no. a large group of undecided in that group as well. interesting. yes. i am sorry, i can't talk about the english in more detail. i can give you, later, i can give you the reference to the team that has done the research on that group. >> perhaps, an unfair question. >> identify yourself. >> i am ethan marrin. sir, you mentioned unsurprisingly, what happens in scotland is unlikely to have great influence in russia what of the reverse? do recent events in russia, syria and iraq, the recent, for the want of a better term, very bad things, likely to induce

conserveatism, or we don't have good enough data to say? >> it is a good question. i think it is genuinely a good question. what you might say, what i showed early yearl, a a majority of scotts are -- over 60%, like the option. most of the ones who say, independence the first option, second favorite option, go for it. surprisingly. the majority of scotts if you ask them now, say, foreign affairs best done by the uk. that is a valid question. imperically though, what we have seen over the last few weeks, the polls, if anything, have shown a shift to yes. we have seen intenseification of conflicts in the ukraine, conflicts, that britain has a stake n with iraq for example. so, sorry, one more jump, the

people who say undecided, must have accepted the degree of uncertainty. everyone who is undecided will go to no. if you are undecided, you go with the status quo. it might be true if it is a quick decision. i think most people who for whom any uncertainty is a frb, they will have already decided to go to no. i think a large group of them will be a no. a lot of people who will say, you know, under no circumstances, do i think i want scotland to defend itself. i want, you know, the powerful

uk as my defense. i think the most of them are already a no. they may see the views reaffirmed. the currency issue was a similar thing. this may be more likely to vote no or yes, the majority of people who said that were indicating they were yes or no. what it might do is force people to solidify their views on this. it doesn't seem to be shifting more people into this. as far as i would go with what we can see at the moment. i think. >> sgm with the camera here in the back. i am a journalist with the army and television. the reason we follow more closely scotland, is because there is a similar situation in the calk cuss, enclave succeeded. the conclayton county is not resolved yet. if people vote yes.

september 18, do you think that skolt land becomes a member of international, independent member of international community and un member. this determination movement. i think that i will do an exception for ukraine, western conflicts seemed to be uniteded against russian regarding ukraine. my question will be about eddinburg agreement. independent from the result that is we will have on september 18th. agreement.

>> i don't have enough know on specific cases, talking about, i think it would be very difficult situation. potentially, if any independent scottish government afterwards. on the one hand, they will -- they won't want to look hypocritical. they will want to say, self determination of people is a positive thing. that certain voices in some parts of the scottish nationals, at the same time, they will want to join nato. and then, as i said on several occasions, people are pragmatic. politicians, fairly pragmatic. that might be conflicts there. i have a distinct feeling in general rhett rick,

uncontentious circumstances, they may be supportive. in things where it would basically hinder their ability to integrate. then, that would partially depend on who the government of an independent scotland would be. the political landscape in scotland will change. you will see a stronger conservative you have in scotland, it wouldn't be associated with westminster english conserveatism. the potential there is there. there are view that is align with conservative policies. if you get a different government, it is hard to predict. i think they used it as an argument. the key thing, they say, if everything works out as it looks in the moment in the case that scotland became independent, it would look like a peaceful

transition, hopefully, if that is the case. so, there is a difference in the term, it sent scene as conflict. many few scotts say, our will is suppressed and the uk agreement to that referendum that is one of the key things, i think that will be an argument in terms where they may want to differential themselves. it would depend on which parties form the scottish government. that is a difficult one. joanne thornton, policy connections international. i wanted to go back to your issue about the economy being number one. you mentioned that the yes vote is increasing, and the most

dispositive issue for people is the thought that economy would do better after independence. is there anything in particular that has convinced more people to think that way? i noticed that businesses have weighed in on both sides of the debate. there seems to be more companies on the yes list than the no letter, was that a factor, or something else persuading people. yes, in fact, the economy could do better under it. >> this is an interesting one, two letters, first, a group of company that is supported better together on the no side. so, the yes list has more companies, but smaller companies on average. that is you not, not surprising. what is interesting, compared to

2013, overall, in the social attitude survey, fewer people that thought that scotland's economy would be better. remember what i showed, there was a much clearly crystallize situation. i have to come up the word crystallization to those who think the economy would do better, nearly all vote yes, it is within that group, nearly everyone is on the yes side. the group has become smaller compared to 2013. however, in august, it has, in the polls at least, it seems to have increased. saw an increase of people who thought the economy would do better. overall, not substantially more people than 2013 at best think the economy would do better, that group has been convinced to

the yes vote. which is, you know, makes it all even more complicationed -- complicated. it is a two-year long process with a lot of civic debate. so, people's attitude formation, on this issue is complex. >> as you know, the american government weighed in somewhat diplomatically on the no side. i wondered if that has had any impact one way or the other, what attitude about that is? also, howas