Alex Salmond calls upon his fellow Scots to choose freedom:
Scotland’s opportunity of a lifetime arrives tomorrow.
It is a date with destiny, and a day when Scotland will be sovereign for the first time in more than three centuries.
It is a precious and historic opportunity, and a moment which is rare in the life of any nation.
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.
Those have no place in a sensible debate.
So in these last days of the greatest political 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.
That message is of the opportunity for our national 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 people of this nation will, for a few precious hours during polling day, hold sovereignty, power and authority in their own hands.
It is the greatest, most empowering moment any of us will ever have….
I believe in independence not because I think we are better than any other country but because I know we are just as good as any other.
A whole 307 years on from the Treaty of Union, we don’t need to rise and be a nation again – we just need to believe in ourselves.
If not us, then who? If not now, then when? This is about you. Your family. Your hopes. Your ambitions. It’s about taking your country’s future into your hands.
Don’t let this opportunity slip through our fingers. Vote Yes tomorrow, with your head and your heart – and put Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands.
If I was a Scot, I’d vote “Yes” without a moment’s hesitation. This is what generation after generation of Scots fought, bled, and died for, the right to be sovereign, independent, and free from English rule.