Sep 16, 2014 4 min read

It’s divided communities like nothing else before.

Cities and towns are carved up street by street and house by house.

But enough about the hotly contested “Backyard Brawl” that pits the football teams of West Virginia University and the University of Pittsburgh every November. Another heated rivalry is playing out right now about 3,400 miles from here that will reach its denouement Thursday when voters in Scotland decide whether they want to remain part of the United Kingdom or go their own way, jettisoning rule from London and charting their own course.

The polls, late in the game, are painfully close, suggesting that it could be a tense night of watching returns for citizens of Scotland, as well as their counterparts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and other observers around the world. If Scotland decides it wants to create its own government, though it will likely retain Queen Elizabeth II as the ceremonial head of state, its impact on the United Kingdom will, it goes without saying, be of seismic proportions. Wales and Northern Ireland might well take up the mantle of independence, leaving the United Kingdom not united but balkanized. The same goes for other parts of Europe. If Prime Minister David Cameron is perceived as having “lost” Scotland, it could well doom his chances of continuing his residence at 10 Downing St. following the next British general election, which must happen by next May.

So, while it makes for interesting spectatorship for Anglophiles and political junkies, you might be tempted to think that the vote and the possibility of an independent Scotland will have about as much meaning in the grand American scheme of things as whoever has control of the ball in the fourth quarter of the Panthers-Mountaineers match-up. But not so fast. David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, pointed out on the website of The Atlantic magazine Monday that the divorce between Scotland and the rest of Great Britain would be profoundly messy, as the leaders of the new nation fight it out with London over who gets what in terms of the good stuff (North Sea oil) and the not-so-good stuff (public debt). In Frum’s estimation, a “Yes” vote by the Scots “would immediately deliver a shattering blow to the political and economic stability of a crucial American ally and global financial power … the British political system would be plunged into a protracted, self-involved constitutional crisis. Britain’s ability to act effectively would be gravely impaired on every issue: ISIS, Ukraine, the weak economic recovery in the European Union.”

Though President Obama has mostly stayed on the sidelines in this debate, a spokesman said the other day that “we have an interest in seeing the United Kingdom remain strong, robust, united and an effective partner,” which would seem to imply that Obama really does not want to be making a congratulatory phone call to new Scottish leaders Friday morning.

Even as Scotland has been given more autonomy in recent years, with its own parliament and final say-so in such areas as health, social services, tourism, transportation and education, it has been promised even more if it remains part of the United Kingdom. Once you clear away the rhetoric and the chest-thumping nationalism, the Scots seem poised to get a good chunk of what they want even if they vote against breaking off their 300-year union with England. To go ahead with independence would, in the words of a front-page editorial in The Financial Times, be “a fool’s errand.”

Despite the hair’s-breadth polls, some people believe there’s actually a cautious “silent majority” of Scots who will emerge Thursday and cast a vote against independence. For their sake – and ours – we hope their voices will be heard with the same volume and clarity as a decent set of bagpipes.