Star comment: 'Yes' vote ripples will hit us all
For folk in Shropshire and Mid Wales, it sounds like a variation on a Monty Python sketch: What does the Scottish referendum mean to us?
Scotland is a land far away and in just a few days' time may be a foreign land.
The perils of the English giving advice to the Scots on how to vote on their referendum on independence are obvious.
Westminster politicians are in a terrible quandary. Every time they open their mouths they irritate the very people they are trying to persuade. Yet if they say nothing, they are open to the charge of, well, saying nothing.
Here, the Welsh have an advantage. Montgomeryshire MP Glyn Davies says he wants all his constituents to encourage Scotland to vote no in the referendum. He has spoken of the "Celtic voice" of Scotland and Wales and says that if Scotland leaves the UK, the voice of Wales will be diminished.
Without having a referendum on the advice that the Welsh should give to the Scots in their ballot, it is going to be difficult to judge what the feeling is in Wales about the vote north of Hadrian's Wall. Nobody can agree if independence will be good or bad for Scotland, so it is not going to be easy to reach a consensus on whether it will be good or bad for Wales.
And it hardly seems likely that pleas from Welshpool, Cardiff and Llanidloes would carry much sway as people in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen vote on the future of Scotland.
While the nature of the impact Scottish independence would have, even on Scotland, is a matter of fierce debate and controversy, it can be said with certainty that it will have an impact.
Whatever affects Scotland affects those who trade and deal with Scotland. The ripples will inevitably be felt in Wales, Shropshire . . . everywhere.
The one vote which would have meant business as usual – an overwhelming rejection of independence – looks unlikely based on the latest opinion polls. A yes vote would bring historic and fundamental change to the remaining UK, and would conceivably encourage separatist sentiment within Wales.
It would not just be the Scots who would wake up in a different country. The UK would be a new UK. Perhaps the worst result of all would be a wafer-thin rejection of independence. It would leave Scotland in a permanent state of intellectual and ideological civil war.
