O, power of Scotland

Stirling, Scotland: This castled city where highlands and lowlands meet has been fought over many times by the Scots and the English, never more bloodily than in the 13th century battle depicted in the Oscar-winning film Braveheart.

Now Alasdair MacPherson hopes to see this former capital of the kingdom of Scotland back in his countrymen's hands without a single shot fired.

In the biggest test of British unity in decades, Scotland is on the verge of being granted the right to hold a referendum on whether to secede from the United Kingdom, putting asunder more than 300 years of marriage to England and Wales.

MacPherson, 49, has been pining all his life for a divorce.

"I've always been convinced that Scotland would have the opportunity to make up her own mind... We know we can run our own country," he said.

But like many a practical Scot, MacPherson is a realist as well as an idealist. If independence can't win enough votes at the ballot box, he'll gladly take a consolation prize: an extensive form of self-rule that stops short of secession but would give Scotland the power to tax and spend.

Led by Alex Salmond, one of the canniest politicians in the British Isles, Scottish nationalists are now fighting to put the alternative option, known as "maximum devolution," on the referendum in the hope that it'll become a back door to eventual independence.

Quick vote

His foes in London insist that the plebiscite be held as quickly and cleanly as possible.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who doesn't want to be remembered as the man who presided over the United Kingdom's demise, is urging that the historic referendum take place next year and that it ask one question and one question only: Should Scotland be independent?

"It must be clear, it must be legal, it must be decisive and it must be fair," Cameron told the House of Commons recently. He accused Salmond and his Scottish National Party, or SNP, of trying to hedge their bets by lobbying for maximum devolution to be added to the ballot and for the vote to be put off till 2014.

"It's not a referendum they want. It's a never-endum," Cameron declared, backed by jeers at the SNP from other lawmakers.

Such scorn doesn't go down well here in Scotland, where many feel that officials south of the border have long treated them with little respect, like unruly stepchildren.

Opinion polls

But in pushing for a fast, single-question plebiscite in his talks with the Scottish government, Cameron and his fellow unionists want to exploit a simple fact: Opinion polls consistently find a majority in Scotland opposed to undoing the 1707 Act of Union that created modern Britain.

At its strongest, pro-independence sentiment tends to top out at 40 per cent to 45 per cent. Voters know that breaking up would no doubt be marred by bitter fights over the family jewels, from who gets the money from North Sea oil to who lands custody of the celebrity pandas at the Edinburgh Zoo, a loan from China to the British — not Scottish — government.

— Los Angeles Times