One of my favourite cynical rebukes to the AV referendum is the charge that, if the referendum was to be held under AV, the winner could be ‘don’t care’ after both Yes and No were discarded in the necessary two run-off rounds.

Obviously this is not the case and, thanks to the First Past the Post nature of the contest, we will have a winner from this nastily contested debate in a few weeks time, irrespective of turnout.   

Many people will have already considered the possibility of Scotland delivering a resounding ‘Yes’ vote and south of the border returning a shrill ‘No’ vote, with Scotland edging out the latter in the overall result, but how likely is it that will actually happen based on recent polling? Well, somewhere close to ‘quite likely’ as it turns out. 

The recent Sunday Times poll has UK voteshare at Yes – 40.0% and No -41.5%. A tight win for the No to AV team. (This is admittedly not in keeping with the recent 16 point lead the No team recorded which, for me, appears to be rogue. Note that the Sunday Times poll that I am using had a sample size of 2,735 to this other poll’s 1,033)

The Scottish element of the Times poll is a believable Yes – 43%, No – 33% while rUK has a voteshare of Yes – 39.7%, No-42.3%.      

Now let’s say that Scots, largely already at the ballot box for the Holyrood elections, are three times as likely to vote in this referendum compared to the rest of the UK (mindful that there are some local elections and a Welsh assembly vote taking place). This would give a result of Yes-40.6%, No-40.2% (calculated by tripling the Scottish subsample size in the Sunday Times poll). 

A wafer-thin win for the Yes team then, handed directly to them by a bigger turnout in Scotland. 

It is difficult to fully comprehend the political carnage that would ensue from this “miserable little compromise” becoming law thanks to Scotland. A horrified right wing Tory group would direct fire towards Lib Dems and Scotland in equal measure, the SNP would struggle to turn down the opportunity to leverage the result to further the cause of independence and David Cameron would have to find a way to accept the result through gritted teeth. Away from Parliament, anti-Scots sentiment down here would reach a new high (low?), many perceiving that England now makes way for Scotland for democratic structure as well as financially. Will many of that Middle England, Daily Mail group decide enough is enough? We’re not all in this together and we cannot go on like this could be the rather ironic refrain. 

This is of course a contrived result from one individual poll but, if a cross-border difference in results were to happen, it would be the third time in as many years. 

In 2009, the Conservatives and UKIP won 59% of the English seats available to them in the European elections. In Scotland that figure was 16%. 

In 2010, the Conservatives won 56% of the available seats in England, in Scotland that figure was 1.7%.

And now, in 2011, Scotland once again has a markedly different take on the issue before us to that of England.  

How many times can Scotland vote one way and England another while still remaining part of the same country? ‘One more’ could be the answer, particularly if the SNP follows through on this week’s poll and is able to form a majority that can offer an independence referendum. 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, whether you believe in the not entirely separate objectives of true proportional representation or Scottish independence, voting Yes on May 5th is your best bet.Â