Does Quebec have answers for us?

It’s straightforward, isn’t it? In or out of the UK? Yes or No for independence? How can there be so much for Edinburgh and Westminster to negotiate? As we are now finding out, there is. And the wrangling over who is entitled to vote – 16 and 17 year olds and Scots living outwith Scotland – will be small change compared to the rammy over the framing of the vote itself.

Much will depend on how the question is put. Talks between the Scottish and UK governments could see intense haggling over not one, but several different methods of framing the final question or questions that will finally appear on the voting paper. Peter Kellner, the polling pundit at YouGov, has set out no fewer than four ways in which the independence question can be couched – these in addition to the straightforward “status quo or independence” choice.

He sets out: First-Past-The-Post; Alternative Vote; Two Questions and something called Condorcet Voting, devised by an 18th century French philosopher (more on these below). Each one can be eloquently argued as being the fairest or most representative method of determining what Scottish voters “really” want.

There’s only one problem: the way Kellner tees it up, you could have three different outcomes to an identical First-Past-The-Post result. So how the question is put and how the votes are counted and assessed will be critical to the outcome.

Until now I have been sceptical of extending the referendum vote to 16 and 17 year olds. Now I’m not so sure. This whole process could be seen as the most instructive education and powerful argument for exposing the young to the complexities of referendums and determining what really is “the settled will of the Scottish people”.

Writing in the Financial Times yesterday, Michael Ignatieff, the former leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, put it bluntly. Who gets to make the rules matters, for “how the rules get made will determine who wins”. Scots, he added, “could save themselves a fair amount of grief if they were to learn from our experience. There is grief aplenty in store”.

The 1995 Quebec independence referendum saw the narrowest of votes for staying part of Canada. Many of those who voted “yes” to Quebec’s independence, he writes, “believed they were voting not for independence but merely for more powers for Quebec within Canada”.

Given the powerful body of opinion both within and outwith the SNP arguing that the referendum should include a question on “maximum devolution”, Mr Ignatieff warns against any muddying of the waters. Such was the resulting uproar over the Quebec referendum and its result that in 2000 the government passed the Canadian Clarity Act “designed”, he writes, “to outlaw the confusion caused by a halfway house sort of question. Only a clear No to Canada, backed by a clear majority in Quebec would require a Canadian government to negotiate separation”.

This begs the question of how that “clear majority” is to be defined and counted. That is why the negotiations in the coming months between the two camps on the minutiae over the question or questions to be put may have a huge influence over the outcome.

Mr Kellner’s four-way choice of voting is by no means exhaustive but gives a revealing insight into voting dynamics. The straightforward Cameron-preferred option of “Independence: Yes or No” needs little elaboration. But if the there is irresistible pressure for the devo-max option to be included, matters get complicated. There is the plain vanilla First-Past-The-Post ballot, where voters would put a cross by their preferred choice. Mr Kellner supposes the following result: status quo 34 per cent, devo-max 30 per cent, independence 36 per cent. Independence wins and the union is over, whatever the turn-out.

Then there is the Alternative Vote. Voters put a 1 against their favourite option, 2 against their second and so on. The winner needs 50 per cent support. If the first preference vote is similar to the FPTP illustration, the least popular devo max option is eliminated and the second choices of these voters distributed. If they vote 20-10 in favour of the status quo, this option then crosses the 50 per cent level and is declared the winner.

A further way of voting is the Two Questions model. People are asked if they approve or oppose a move from the status quo to devo-max and would they favour or oppose full independence. Mr Kellner reasonably supposes the 36 per cent supporting independence divides 28-8 per cent for devo-max. This would deliver a clear 58-42 per cent vote for devo-max over the status quo. Finally there is Condorcet voting – just the one to wheel out when the pub row starts to heat up. Under this system, there would be three questions and three votes: do you: 1, prefer status quo or devo-max?; 2, the status quo or independence?; 3, devo-max or independence? This would seem to more deeply explore voter preferences. On Mr Kellner’s calculations, devo-max beats status quo, status quo beats independence and devo-max beats independence. Devo-max would thus emerge the winner.

No system is inherently more “democratic” than the other but an all-out row will rage over which system to adopt, driven (quite coincidentally of course) by party calculations of which system is most likely to give them a more favourable result.

Once all the arguments are aired and analysed, even political nerds might start to weary. A populist yearning for a straight yes/no, in/out may emerge the longer the wrangling goes on. But even a straight vote may not settle the argument because context can change – as well as our understanding of what is really meant by “independence”.

Referendums have a deeply deceptive quality to them. They appear simple, incontestable and decisive. But they can contain the seeds of explosive further division. Few who voted in the 1975 referendum to accept the renegotiated terms of EEC membership fully appreciated the nature and dynamic of the institution they were joining. People thought they were joining a free trade area. What transpired was something else entirely. A vote more reflective of realities would almost certainly have produced a different result.

In politics, it would be wrong to assume the placing of a voter’s cross is the end of the matter.