GO SCOTLAND GO!

Alex Salmond's letter to the Scottish people

In these final hours of this historic campaign I want to speak directly to every person in this country who is weighing up the arguments they have heard.

I have no doubt people in Scotland will look past the increasingly desperate and absurd scare stories being generated daily from Downing Street. These have no place in a sensible debate.

So in these last days of the greatest campaign Scotland has ever seen, I want to ask you to take a step back from the arguments of politicians and the blizzard of statistics.

For every expert on one side, there is an expert on the other.

For every scare tactic, there is a message of hope, opportunity and possibility.

The opportunity for our parliament to gain real job-creating powers, the ability to protect our treasured National Health Service and the building of a renewed relationship of respect and equality with our friends and neighbours in the rest of these islands.

But for all that, the talking is nearly done.

The campaigns will have had their say.

What’s left is just us – the people who live and work here.

The only people with a vote. The people who matter.

The people who for a few precious hours during polling day hold sovereignty, power, authority in their hands.

It’s the greatest, most empowering moment any of us will ever have.

Scotland’s future – our country in our hands.

What to do? Only each of us knows that.

For my part, I ask only this.

Make this decision with a clear head and a clear conscience.

Know that by voting Yes, what we take into our hands is a responsibility like no other – the responsibility to work together to make Scotland the nation it can be.

That will require maturity, wisdom, engagement and energy. And it will come not from the usual sources of parties and politicians but from you – the people who have transformed this moment from another political debate into a wonderful celebration of people power.

Does every country make mistakes? Yes.

Are there challenges for Scotland to overcome? Undoubtedly.

But my question is this – who better to meet those challenges on behalf of our nation than us?

We must trust ourselves.

Trust each other.

In Scotland we’ve always had the wealth, the resources and the talent.

We know that with independence we would immediately be in the top 20 of the richest countries in the world.

But what has emerged in this campaign is something very new.

It has changed Scotland forever. I have met it in every community I have been in the last weeks.

Confidence.

Belief.

Alex Salmond, Primer Ministre d'Escòcia