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Stay or go? Scotland votes on independence from Britain

But the “No” camp insists that many voters opposed to independence have simply not made their voices heard yet.

“The silent majority will be silent no more,” said Britain’s former prime minister Gordon Brown in a passionate appeal to a Glasgow rally. “We will not have this.”

In the oil city of Aberdeen, “No” campaigner Andy Harrold admitted their side had been slow to get started and had not spent money on “razzmatazz”.

“I’m here to save my country,” he added. “There have been too many indecisive statements from Salmond, he hasn’t come out with anything concrete about what’s happening.”

With opinion polls suggesting only a few points between the “Yes” and the “No” camps, undecided voters are likely to be crucial.

“I’m going to be reading up on it tonight. I’m going to be looking at what side makes the better argument, whether I can believe one side,” said Steven Andrew in Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh.

– ‘Status quo is gone’ –

Debate in the campaign has focused on the economy, including what currency an independent Scotland would use and whether its North Sea oil wealth would help make it a richer nation.

Questions over whether an independent Scotland could be a member of the European Union and how long this would take to negotiate have also surfaced repeatedly.

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Scotland’s Parliament, opened in 1999, holds some powers devolved from Westminster to set policy in certain areas of domestic policy, such as health and education.

Even if there is a “No” vote, Scotland is set to be handed new authority over areas like tax and welfare, which Brown says could amount to effective home rule.

But a detailed timetable for this only emerged late in the campaign after Brown effectively stepped in to take control of the “No” camp as opinion polls started to suggest “Yes” could win.

“The status quo is gone,” Cameron said on Monday in his final Scottish speech of the campaign. “There is no going back to the way things were. A vote for ‘No’ means real change.”

Britain’s leader, deeply unpopular in Scotland, has faced criticism for not taking the prospect of Scottish independence seriously enough sooner.

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