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Old loyalties are being shaken up in the campaign for Scotland's independence referendum - and the Labour party is feeling that more than most in its industrial heartland.
In places like Cumbernauld, a new town outside Glasgow built in the 1950s to house overspill population, support for Labour has ebbed and pro-independence ranks have swelled.
"Yes" campaign supporter Stephen McGrath said he felt betrayed by Labour as the opposition party's leader Ed Miliband visited this week in a bid to bolster the unionists ahead of a tight vote on Thursday.
Miliband "represents nothing here - the situation here gets worse but they in Westminster do nothing," he said, after the party leader spoke in a local community centre.
The son of a leading Marxist academic who was raised in London and educated at Oxford University, Miliband's background is a far cry from that of many voters in working class Labour areas such as Cumbernauld.

When the Labour party leader came to Scotland with Prime Minister David Cameron, Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond said they were part of a "Westminster elite" who were "in a state of absolute panic" over the independence vote.
Polls suggest Labour voters are rapidly moving towards the "Yes" camp, despite their party supporting a "No" vote.
A YouGov survey released on Sunday which gave "Yes" a narrow lead said the proportion of Labour voters intending to vote "Yes" had risen from 18 per cent a month ago to 35 per cent.
Industrial decline has hit Cumbernauld, a town of 50,000, hard and the unemployment rate now stands at 9.5 per cent compared to 7.3 percent for Scotland as a whole.
Disillusionment with Labour is rampant, as was shown in the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, in which veteran local lawmaker Cathie Craigie lost to Salmond's Scottish National Party.
Miliband, in his speech, was scathing about former Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher's free market reforms in the 1980s, still deeply unpopular in Scotland, and talked about the need to defend social welfare.
But he argued that a "No" vote in the referendum came from the "head, heart and soul".
"I think the independence proposition just doesn't add up on social justice," he told the community centre.
In the audience, Labour supporter John Brownlie agreed.
"I found him very convincing. This has always been Labour territory and it still is," he said.
"But people are concerned. There is a lot of unemployment here."
Fellow Labour backer Elizabeth Hay said the solution was not to switch to the pro-independence camp.
"They keep talking rubbish and promise kingdom and heaven to the people and many believe them.
"I'm starting to get the jitters," she added.


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Focus

Labour voters flock to ‘Yes’ campaign as support for independence surges

Leader of the Labour party Ed Miliband speaks to a gathering of "No" voters in Glasgow. Photo: Reuters

Labour leader, Ed Miliband. Photo: Reuters

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Catalan nationalists gathered on Thursday day to demand a vote on statehood. The Spanish region's push for independence has been given added momentum by the Scottish referendum. Photo: AFP

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Pedestrians pass a banner urging them to vote in the independence referendum on Princess Street in Edinburgh, Scotland on Thursday. Photo: Reuters

Employees of Gordon diesel services prepare to erect Yes campaign placards on their workshop in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Photo: Reuters

A pro-union banner and the British Union flag are pictured in a field near the Scottish borders on Thursday. Photo: AFP

News

World

Old loyalties are being shaken up in the campaign for Scotland's independence referendum - and the Labour party is feeling that more than most in its industrial heartland.
