I can’t speak for Namkcalb, but one theory might be that the Yes campaign has been better organised overall, but the No campaign has made the best arguments over the last few days. Therefore postal votes (the vast majority of which will have already been cast, usually several days ago) may be more likely to be Yes votes.
Is this guaranteed?
Maybe some will be able to, most won’t - house prices in England are already significantly higher than those in Scotland (though to be fair, if you compare Scotland to England North of, say, Manchester, it might be closer - but how many people are going to want to move from Edinburgh to Middlesbrough?), this differential is only going to increase in the event of a yes vote. Not to mention it being somewhat illogical to vote for independence for the country you (presumably) love, with the back up plan of leaving it altogether if things go wrong.
Which is an excellent argument for voting No, to ensure this is guaranteed rather than reliant on goodwill. The only country “surrounding” Scotland is England (or the rest of the UK if you include sea borders), once North Sea oil and gas runs out I can’t see England being too bothered if Scotland goes to the wall (in the event of a yes vote).
Polls seem to show the opposite, with the Yes campaign making the strongest gains in the last few days. No was 10 points ahead last month so presumably postal votes should help the No campaign more.
Agreed that Yes voters are more passionate, but I’m not sure the inference follows - personally, I usually apply for a postal vote (not for this election as I’m not eligible to vote, being an Englander) because to me it seems easier to vote this way than have to queue up at a polling station on a specific day when I’m likely to be working as well as other activities. It’s extremely easy to apply for a postal vote so I don’t really see the downside (except I suppose it does slightly increase the risk of electoral fraud).
Also, it’s possible to simply drop your postal vote in at a ballot box at a polling station on voting day, should you happen to fail to post it in time. As such, I don’t know why more people don’t apply for a postal vote.
Well Betfair, an internet bookmaker has stated it is already paying out on people who have bet for a no vote, so confident that this will be the outcome.
I hope you got odds of 10-1 against or better, I think this is a losing proposition - best of luck though!
Bookmakers (at least in the UK) often do this as a publicity stunt - clearly it’s not the best thing for them from a purely mathematical point of view, but if they believe such a thing is extremely likely, it buys them a bit of (potentially) free marketing/goodwill. I assume it works something like this - let’s say they stand to ‘win’ £1million on “No” bets should the result be “Yes”, and they assess the probably of “Yes” winning is 10%. Therefore by paying out ‘winning’ “No” bets before the fact, the cost to them is effectively £100,000 (because that’s what, in the long run, they would expect to ‘lose’ by unnecessarily paying out on those “No” bets should “Yes” in fact be the outcome). I know there is no “long run” for this particular event, but their whole business is based on the overall “long run”. If the betting firm decides the value of the associated publicity and goodwill is more than £100,000, they may decide it is a good bet :).
Caveats to this: firstly, any of those numbers could easily by wrong by an order of magnitude or more, but hopefully they illustrate the principle. Secondly, I have never worked at a bookmaker so have no idea if this is how it actually works, would be great if someone could confirm or deny it.
Even though it doesn’t affect me in the slightest, as far as I know, I hope it will be “No.”
Australia had a Republic Referendum about fifteen years ago, and it was a No, but that was partially because of the way the question was worded on the forms, a subtlety. But I suspect that it would’ve been a No anyway, and for the same arbitrary feeling I think that’s what will happen with Scotland.
I’m not very good with political predictions, though.