A Scottish Sundering of the UK Looks Much More Likely

FOR once the hyperbolic phrase holds true: the stakes could not be much higher. On September 10th David Cameron, the Conservative prime minister, Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party, and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats rushed to Scotland in a desperate and possibly doomed effort to save the United Kingdom. If Scots vote for independence on September 18th, as opinion polls suggest they may, it will be the end of the union. If they vote against it, Mr Cameron and his political rivals promised, Scotland will get significant new powers, with talks on a fresh constitutional deal to start the day after the vote. Either way—but to very different degrees—Britain is about to change.