TOM Nolan is chairman of the St Patrick's Festival in that part of Scotland they call "Little Ireland".

A Labour supporter and party member who will cast a No vote on September, he has been taken by surprise by one issue more than any other in Coatbridge's Referendum debate.

"There's definitely a movement towards Yes. No doubt about it. At the start of this process I didn't think Yes were anywhere near the 40 per cent they were said to be elsewhere. But now the picture is the same as it is across the country.

"I've friends who've surprised me they're voting Yes and have been taken in by these spurious arguments. Coatbridge has always been a Labour town."

What was not a surprise was the decision of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown to kick off the first of his series of rallying calls across the country in the North Lanarkshire town, which is still one of Scotland's worst economic blackspots.

Mr Brown warned an audience at Coatbridge High School of the potential ramifications for jobs in the event of independence.

It was an appeal to the core Labour support that daily reports claim is shifting behind independence.

Represented by Labour at Westminster since 1935 and at Holyrood since 1999, Coatbridge was once the industrial heartland of Scotland. George Orwell's book The Road to Wigan Pier was illustrated by a photograph of homes in the town's Rosehall area.

Especially noted for its historical links with Ireland owing to large scale immigration into the town from Ulster, especially from County Donegal, this created another level of adherence to the Labour Party, the one-time political home of the Irish-Scots.

But while electorally the area remains in Labour hands, change has been blowing for many years. Those of Irish extraction have switched to the SNP in their droves, the old Labour values of the area are distant from the New Labour agenda since 1994 and there is a disillusionment with some of their elected representatives.

Michael Coyle has been ­organising much of the SNP's campaign around Coatbridge. Now a Nationalist councillor, he spent 30 years in the Labour Party, including a spell working for Coatbridge MP Tom Clarke.

"The swing from old Labour is massive and real," he said. "Old folk, Labour all their lives, are telling us this is the only way to change things.

"All over the Labour heartlands of Coatbridge you'll see Yes posters in windows."

Mr Coyle goes further: "I know for a fact Labour councillors in this part of Lanarkshire will vote Yes. They've told me but it would be unfair to name them.

"But this area has paid a heavy price with disabilities and illness from heavy industry. The cuts from Westminster around welfare are coming home to roost and many in Labour know this."

Scottish Government Health Secretary Alex Neil is the pivotal SNP figure in the area. The levels of benefits claimed in the area and proposals to do away with Disability Living Allowance he says are pushing people to Yes. And it's not just the ethnic Irish who may be a key demographic in the area.

Mr Neil said: "I spent this afternoon in the mosque in Monklands. The people there are terrified of the rise of Ukip south of the Border and the lurch to the right. Other voters, traditional Labour voters, simply can't believe their party is in bed with the Tories."

One Labour insider said a "Celtic supporter-Catholic-Left wing nexus", previously solid Labour, had been "swallowing the SNP line about a social ­democratic utopia hook, line and sinker".

Insisting the SNP is "in fact right-of-centre in so many aspects" and that socialism "is not in its DNA", the source nonetheless understood the local dynamics.

He said: "What you have in Coatbridge, and wider Lanarkshire, is a convergence of the remoteness of Westminster, disillusion with Labour and an acceptance of the Yes sales pitch.

"People like Frank Roy (Motherwell and Wishaw MP) cast a long shadow in these parts. And people think voting Yes is the way to get rid of the likes of him and (Airdrie and Shotts MP) Pamela Nash."

Writer Des Dillon hails from the town. A confirmed Yes supporter, the internationally acclaimed author and screenwriter believes the older Catholic generation remaining loyal to Labour and will vote no.

But the Facebook generation is turning people in places like Coatbridge into Yes supporters.

He said: "About 30 years ago, the generation of voters in Coatbridge then believed a vote for independence would lead to a Scotland run by the Kirk. That's still being whispered in Catholic churches in the town. It's still so ingrained.

"But the younger people have woken up. They see Westminster as remote and the politics of those in London as dead."

At a recent event hosted by Mr Nolan, acclaimed historian Sir Tom Devine claimed those of an Irish extraction were now amongst those most likely to vote Yes. At the same event, local MP Tom Clarke, who has represented Coatbridge since 1982, was challenged over the war in Iraq and MPs expenses. Some saw the shouts from the audience as a crystallisation of the detachment between MP and constituents.

Mr Clark, who has lived in the town all his life, believes the disillusionment with Labour and claims Coatbridge will vote for independence are exaggerated by campaigners from outwith the area. He said: "I'm very confident that No has and will have a clear majority in Coatbridge. We had to turn people away from the Gordon Brown event on Monday. I've met people who've been taken in by the claim this is the same as Irish independence.

"We're not recognising a lot of people from Coatbridge knocking doors and canvassing, be they SNP people or with Tommy Sheridan, but while I certainly do get Labour people voting Yes, I'm also getting SNP No voters."

Mr Clark adds that many on the doorsteps are persuaded by socialistic vision as part of the Yes message and some have felt the campaign to be "bullying, which is foreign to the people of Coatbridge". He added: "I think Sir Tom Devine when he spoke of the swing to Yes may have been speaking for himself rather than the Irish diaspora of Coatbridge."