Young Scottish communists warned yesterday that workers would face a bleak future if the country voted to break away from Britain.

With tomorrow’s referendum too close to call, Young Communist League Scottish organiser Johnnie Hunter said that a vote for the SNP’s idea of independence would split the working class and leave Britain at risk of endless austerity.

“The SNP’s separatism is independence in name only and a trap for the working class,” he said.

“By retaining the pound, far from ridding ourselves of the Tories forever, we hand over monetary policy — and an effective veto over the Scottish government — to a now foreign and most likely Tory government.”

Mr Hunter said that the Young Communist League would continue to fight for a federal Britain — “a Scottish Parliament with powers to intervene economically for public ownership and a British government to redistribute power and wealth.”

A Yes vote would leave the bulk of Scotland’s economy in foreign hands, he said, while “the shared history of the British working class would be shattered.”

The Communist Party of Britain (CPB) said it was “not independence on offer, but a reshuffling of the capitalist cards that would leave the Scots at the mercy of the EU, Nato and transnational finance.”

CPB Scottish secretary Tom Morrison called for a “reinvigorated campaign for change that advances social justice,” arguing that the left should fight for real economic democracy and not a “constitutional fix.”

Scotland’s devolved authorities already have the power to protect public services such as the NHS, he noted, while First Minister Alex Salmond’s plans to cut corporation tax would put funding for such services at risk.

Communists spoke out as a poll revealed that nearly two-thirds of people south of the border would fear for the future after a Yes vote.

The TNS survey found that 63 per cent of adults in England and Wales opposed Scottish separation, which would reduce the chance of a Labour general election victory next year.

Mr Hunter said his message to young people was: “Put hope before despair and put class before nation. Vote No.”