Historic day for Scotland’s future

THE STAKES could hardly be higher.

When First Minister Alex Salmond and Prime Minister David Cameron put pen to paper in Edinburgh today they will place Scotland’s very future as a nation into the hands of its people.

The historic document will pave the way for an independence referendum in the autum of 2014 when the country’s six million citizens will be given the opportunity to decide the fate of their homeland.

Scottish Secretary of State Michael Moore and Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon have spent weeks finalising a deal on the staging of the vote.

Their top level negotiations reached a conclusion on Friday and the agreement will be rubber stamped by their respective bosses today.

Mr Moore was certainly not overplaying it when he described the referendum as the single most important decision the people of Scotland will ever have to make.

Such momentous decisions should not be taken in the heat of the moment and every Scot has a moral duty to carefully consider the pro and anti-independence arguments before making up their mind over how they wish to vote.

But the two-year wait until the poll opens is increasingly being seen by observers as too long to wait.

Holyrood has to be able to govern effectively in the interim and relations with West minster have to be maintained.

The danger is that two years of point-scoring and hypedup rhetoric on a single issue may simply turn off voters from the political process as a whole rather than engage them.

In the interests of all as Scotland’s consitutional future is decided, politicians at the highest level at both Holyrood and West minster must ensure the tightrope balance between effective administration and impassioned political debate is maintained throughout.