Final TV debate looms before Scotland's independence vote

By Alistair Smout

EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Scotland's future will be debated in a final TV showdown on Monday, just weeks before a historic independence referendum, with secessionists looking for a game-changing performance from their leader to catch up in the polls.

As the Sept. 18 vote nears, polls show the campaign to sever Scotland's 307-year union with England and leave the United Kingdom is trailing in support, as it has been from the start.

Several recent polls have shown support for independence climbing a few points, but the most recent "poll of polls," on Aug. 15, which is based on an average of the last six polls and excludes undecided respondents, found support for a breakaway stands at 43 percent against 57 percent for staying in the UK.

But expectations were riding high for the second of two live TV debates with Alex Salmond, 59, leader of the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), enjoying a reputation as a canny campaigner who has unexpectedly won elections in the past.

"It's the last real public chance to reach a large audience. Salmond is very much the underdog at the moment, so he really needs to pull off an impressive performance," said Patrick Brione, director of research at pollster Survation.

The TV debate is expected to center on three issues: if and how an independent Scotland could keep the pound, how many barrels of oil are left in the North Sea, and whether Scotland's publicly funded health service would be better off in a breakaway state.

Salmond unexpectedly failed to dominate the first debate on Aug. 5, in which Alistair Darling, the leader of the anti-independence "Better Together" campaign, put him on the spot over the issue of currency in an independent Scotland.

FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION

The question is one that opponents of independence have long pushed for an answer to. Yet Salmond seemed blindsided by Darling's persistence and failed to spell out a "plan B" if the British government refused to formally share the pound, his preferred option.

All three major UK-wide parties have ruled out such a union, but Salmond predicts their position will change if there's a "yes" vote in September .

Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones intervened on Monday to say he would oppose any currency union after a "yes" vote.

"If Scotland decides it does not want to share in our union, then Scotland cannot expect to share in the institutions of the Union," Jones said in an article in the Daily Record newspaper.

Bookmaker Ladbrokes has Salmond as the favorite again before Monday's debate, but he is less heavily touted this time.

Survation's Brione said that Salmond was seen as the favorite before the first debate, so he was also seen as the loser to Darling, a former British finance minister, who is looked on as a safe pair of hands but as somewhat uninspiring.

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"Darling benefited very much from people not expecting him to do well going into the first debate," Brione said.

A spokesman for the pro-independence "Yes Scotland" campaign said the debates were important because they reached a large audience but emphasized the breadth of the movement's grassroots campaign, which he said gave it an edge.

Douglas Alexander, the Labour party's foreign affairs spokesman and an opponent of independence, said the nationalist campaign was in trouble with just weeks to the vote.

"For them to be in a position with just days to go until postal ballots drop where they cannot answer the most fundamental question in relation to what currency Scotland would use ... is genuinely not where they expected to be," he said.

The debate, which will be held in an art gallery in Glasgow, will be shown at 2030 BST (1930 GMT/3.30 p.m. EDT) on the BBC.