Billed as the first public test of Scottish independence it was far from scientific or representative - most students stayed away, but the Yes campaign suffered a set back in the propaganda war
Share 60
inShare1
Email 
Around 2,600 students at Glasgow university voted in a mock referendum on independence, rejecting it by a 24% margin Photograph: Loop Images / Corbis
It was hyped as the first major test of student opinion on Scottish independence, and to the glee of the pro-UK camp, independence lost.
In a mock referendum at Glasgow university, some 10% of the total student population of 23,000 voted on Thursday to the stay in the UK by a very comfortable margin: 1614 (62%) voting against independence compared to 967 (38%) in favour.
It was a larger turn-out than the campaigns had expected: they thought only 1,000 to 1,500 students were likely to vote. Hosted by Glasgow's rival student unions, the Glasgow University union and Queen Margaret union, eight political societies on campus - including the major parties and the GU Dialectical Society - had invited students to take part.
Glasgow university SNP students held a mock referendum in October 2011, which saw a 55-38 result in favour of breaking away. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian As an acid test of Scottish opinion – the first live exercise involving the agreed referendum question "should Scotland be an independent country" - this was not a scientific experiment.
But it was a blow to Yes Scotland, and the pro-UK camp relished the propaganda it offered: that 24% margin was more comfortable a lead than recent polling (ranging from 15 to 20%) suggests the no campaign currently holds.
Jackie Ballie, for the anti-independence Better Together coalition, interviewed on STV's current affairs show Scotland Tonight, took particular delight in noting that Nicola Sturgeon, the deputy first minister and the senior Scottish National party MSP in Glasgow, had been on campus all day Thursday to motivate students to vote yes.
After all, the pro-independence movement had been delighted by an Ipsos Mori poll for the Times last week which appeared to show a doubling of support for independence amongst their target 18-24 age group, from 27% in favour to 58%.
Earlier this week, Sturgeon had been lead speaker at a campaign rally on campus with their student volunteers, Patrick Harvie, the Scottish Green party parliamentary leader and Yes campaigner, with writer Alan Bissett, as part of that motivational campaign.
Baillie, a Scottish Labour MSP at Holyrood, noted on STV:
What was interesting is that I know that the deputy first minister visited, there was a succession of other ministers as well and MSPs, and I think that the Yes campaign had two paid members of staff [on campus].
So having thrown the kitchen sink at it, they must be really disappointed that they didn't achieve a better result.
Blair Jenkins, the Yes Scotland chief executive who had attended the count, said the fact nearly 90% of students didn't vote was a sign they hadn't made up their minds.
Even so, he acknowledged the vote had confirmed what he already knew: Yes Scotland needed many more months to close the gap in support, and win over the uncommitted.
Like the population at large, most students are undecided about what they think about independence.
I think it's one of the reasons why it's so important that we've this length of campaign and I think it will be the intensity of the campaign we've going to have over the next 20 months which will give people the chance to get the information that they want.
Charlie Kennedy, the former UK leader of the anti-independence Lib Dems and currently in his second term as Glasgow university's elected rector, insisted he was speaking as a neutral when he said:
First and foremost, the real winners today are the democratic process itself and the historic reputation of the University of Glasgow in the lineage of the national debate down the generations.
What I think is interesting about this result is the extent to which it would seem to reflect the broad swathe of the national opinion polls over the course. But there is a long way to go yet as the debate intensifies.
The real lesson is the extent to which students wanted to hear more of the detail and the arguments involved. Both sides need to campaign positively.