It was inevitable
It's finally happened, we've gotten a poll lead, and with YouGov no less. Our worst pollster. A new panelbase poll conducted over a 2-day less timeframe (from the 2nd to the 4th of September rather than YouGov's 2nd to 6th or something) shows us at 48% Yes, 52% No. Panelbase were, until now, our best pollster. So much so Unionists used to completely ignore panelbase - calling it biased in favour of the SNP and everything, saying it was wildly incorrect. Now the same Unionists on social media that made those comments one year ago are the ones clutching onto that thread; saying stuff like "No has a 4 point lead with Panelbase! Keep your chins up, people! Only one poll counts!" like they've completely forgotten everything they said about the pollster.
Literally two months ago I can remember independence supporters making those exact same comments. I was one of them, and I still am. Now it's the No campaigners that are alleging media bias/dodgy polls. I sometimes feel that a good sense of irony is far, far more important to a healthy democracy than most people realise.
Considering this is the poll that I was worried about, thinking it would show a dip in Yes support since last week (I mentioned it a while ago), I do feel a lot better tonight. I'm still very worried though; this poll came out a bit too soon for my liking. All I can say is we need to do everything in our power to make that at least 55%. The "poll of polls" which I believe is some kind of average of polls is now at 47%, the highest it has ever been.
At least the Scotland will be (most probably) free in 12 days.
Once we vote Yes we'll be in a fascinating sovereignty-limbo, worthy of study from political analysts all over the world (at least I think so anyway). We'll be an independent-state in waiting, having voted Yes our government will have a Yes mandate and can take that to the negotiating table to negotiate the terms. We'll declare independence at the end of the negotiation period, which the SNP claim will be 2016. I personally don't care when we declare independence; it could be 2025 and I'd still be the happiest man in Christendom.
Yet in spite of that we'll still be British for the duration; we'll still elect MPs at the next general election to represent Scotland at Westminster over the interim period, we'll basically experience business-as-normal on the citizen-level. It's only the politicians that'll be experiencing real differences as they debate with Cameron and his underlings, trying to win back some of the North Sea oil fields stolen by Tony Blair and given to England back in '97, things like that. Given that we will be a country-in-waiting I think that we will be protected from any kind of British military intervention abroad; the UK government could not, for example, decide to invade Iraq again with boots on the ground and go to war with the Islamic State. It just couldn't - not when we've got one foot out the door, it wouldn't be possible to suck us into that. If there's considerable risk of us getting sucked into another war in the next two years (and I firmly believe there is) then for pacifist-types like me that's a reason to vote Yes in itself. I know for one thing if we'd actually gone to war in Syria the Yes vote would have gone through the roof, and the only reason we never went to war in Syria was because of an accident/chance.