Scotland's future lies on a knife edge

Polling experts last night said the Scottish independence referendum was "too close to call" as a clutch of surveys gave contradictory pictures of the state of the campaign.

A survey of 705 Scots by ICM suggested that the "yes" vote had opened up an eight-point lead over the "no" campaign.

Results of the online poll showed 54% of Scots who have made up their minds planned to vote in favour of independence, with 46% intending to vote against.

However, a separate telephone poll of 1000 Scots by Survation, released by the Better Together campaign against independence, put the "no" vote ahead by the same margin.

Martin Boon, the head of ICM Research, said his firm's poll should be seen in the context of a volatile campaign in which results have shifted dramatically.

"Polls can and do go up and down and the fuss an individual poll makes will soon be forgotten when the real resultarrives," he said.

"The proper way to analyse this poll is simply to take it as an 'outlier' which fits into the overall impression created by all Scottish polls right now: it seems too close to call, and could go either way."

Professor John Curtice, an elections expert from the University of Strathclyde, said he believed that the "no" campaign was probably still fractionally ahead. But he added: "If the polls are correct, it is absolutely clear that the race is now much tighter than it was just two or three weeks ago."

A poll for The Sunday Telegraph questioned 1865 adults in England and Wales and found an overwhelming majority want Scotland to stay in the UK.

Respondents in a survey by Bloomberg predicted that the pound could tumble as much as 10% in the event of a "yes" vote.

It is thought that women voters will ultimately decide the outcome of the referendum.

The recent polls have found that women are increasingly likely to vote against independence.

Blair McDougall, campaign director of Better Together said: "Any one of us could cast the vote that makes the difference between the UK staying together or breaking apart."

Economists have warned that Britain faces a period of severe economic turbulence if Scotland votes for independence on Thursday.

A report from a respected financial advisory firm said that investors were already pulling money out of the UK at the fastest pace since the "credit crisis" of 2008.

A study by Deutsche Bank said a "yes" vote for Scottish independence would "go down in history as a political and economic mistake" on a par with Winston Churchill's decision in 1925 to return the pound to the Gold Standard, or the failures by the US Federal Reserve that triggered the Great Depression in the 1930s.

It warned that Scotland risked a similar depression if voters backed the "yes" campaign and described the desire for independence as likely to have negative consequences "far beyond" what people imagined.

Former UK prime minister Gordon Brown said the Deutsche Bank report showed that Scotland was "in danger of falling through an economic trap door".

With the battle over independence reaching fever pitch on the final weekend of campaigning, George Osborne, the UK's finance minister, announced that he was withdrawing from a crucial G20 summit next weekend because of the risk that a vote for independence in Thursday's referendum would plunge the UK economy into turmoil.

Osborne said a "yes" vote would have "permanent consequences" for the British economy.

"It's a very big decision with permanent consequences," said Osborne.

He referred to economic risks highlighted by analysts and cited a report by Credit Suisse that predicted a separate Scotland would fall into a "deep recession" and would lead to a run on deposits in Scotland-based banks.

On another dramatic day in the independence campaign:

Warnings about the dire economic consequences of separation intensified with Britain's biggest cellphone companies preparing to issue an unprecedented joint statement about the price rises that would follow;

Virgin's Sir Richard Branson and the chief executives of Marks and Spencer, the Kingfisher DIY group and the Timpson shoe-repair chain added their voices to the chorus of business opposition;

UBS, the global financial services giant, echoed Deutsche Bank by predicting independence would prompt a recession in Scotland.

In a foreword to the Deutsche Bank report, David Folkerts-Landau, the institution's chief economist, described the economic case for independence as "incomprehensible".

Folkerts-Landau predicted that the main effects of independence, with uncertainty about its currency, would be that Scottish residents would move their cash and assets to England and that financial institutions would also move south. - ©The Telegraph, London