Scots keep their kingdom united

Decisively turn away a bid for secession from Britain, with 'no' campaign winning 55.3% votes and pro-independence side 44.7%

With a sweeping majority far wider than had been forecast, voters in Scotland rejected independence from Britain in a referendum that had threatened to break up a 307-year union, according to an official count on Friday from almost all voting areas. The outcome came as a bitter blow to those who had campaigned with mounting passion in a hard-fought campaign spanning two years but reaching back into centuries of shared history. The result also showed the depth of Scottish support for secession, with 45 per cent of voters backing the creation of a sovereign state.

While opinion surveys before the vote had forecast a contest too close to call, the 'no' campaign opposed to independence secured some 55 per cent of the ballot, according to near-complete results, swinging the United Kingdom back from what pro-independence campaigners had depicted as the cusp of a historic break-up, with incalculable consequences for Britain's place in the world.

"The people of Scotland have spoken and it is a clear result," Prime Minister David Cameron said, speaking outside 10 Downing Street, in London. "They have kept our country of four nations together. As I said during the campaign, it would have broken my heart to see our United Kingdom come to an end." (DECODE THE VOTE)

He went on to say "there can be no reruns" of the ballot and it was now time "for our United Kingdom to come together and to move forward".

The prime minister spoke shortly after Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party and first minister of Scotland, who led the campaign for secession, conceded defeat in an address to cheering supporters. "I accept the verdict of the people," he said. "And I call on all the people of Scotland to accept the democratic verdict of the people of Scotland." Salmond stressed that, even though the anti-independence campaign had prevailed, some 1.6 million Scottish residents had voted to end the union, providing what he termed a "substantial" bloc of support to press for new powers promised by political leaders in London.

"Scotland will expect these to be honoured in rapid course," Salmond said. And he qualified the outcome saying that had decided "not at this stage to become an independent country," implying that he would pursue his longstanding dream of a sovereign Scotland in the future.

Leaders of Britain's three main parties, shocked by the strong showing of the independence campaign in recent weeks, had scrambled to offer Scots more devolved powers if they remained part of the United Kingdom. "Scotland will expect these to be honoured in rapid course," Salmond said.

Cameron said new laws would be published by January to redeem the pledges, speaking of a "new and fair settlement" that would affect all four components of the United Kingdom - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

He referred specifically to the longstanding and often contentious issue of whether England should have greater parliamentary control over affairs that affect it exclusively. "We have heard the voice of Scotland and now the millions of voices of England must be heard," he said.

Before dawn, after a night of counting that showed a steady trend in favour of maintaining the union, Nicola Sturgeon, the deputy head of the pro-independence Scottish National Party, effectively conceded defeat for the "yes" campaign that had pressed for secession. "Like thousands of others across the country I've put my heart and soul into this campaign and there is a real sense of disappointment that we've fallen narrowly short of securing a 'yes' vote," Sturgeon told BBC television as the votes showed strengthening support for the 'no' campaign.

Shortly after Sturgeon's comments, Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland and seat of its Parliament, reported a huge gain for the "no" camp, with more than 194,000 voters rejecting independence compared with almost 124,000 in favour. Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland, had voted in favour of secession by a lower margin.

The decision spared Cameron a shattering defeat that would have raised questions about his ability to continue in office and diminished his nation's standing in the world.

But while the result preserved a union molded in 1707, it left Cameron facing a backlash among some of his Conservative Party lawmakers. They were angered by the promises of greater Scottish autonomy that he and other party leaders made just days before the vote, when it appeared that the independence campaign might win. Some lawmakers called for similar autonomy for England itself, and even the creation of a separate English Parliament.

The outcome headed off the huge economic, political and military imponderables that would have flowed from a vote for independence. But it also presaged a looser, more federal United Kingdom. And it was unlikely to deter Scottish nationalists from trying again.

President Obama had made little secret of his desire that the United Kingdom remain intact. Indeed, Britain had long prided itself on a so-called special relationship with the United States, and Britain's allies had been concerned by, among other things, Salmond's vow to evict Britain's nuclear submarine bases from Scotland, threatening London's role in the West's defenses.

As the vote approached, the margin between the two camps narrowed to a few percentage points, and at one point, the "yes" campaign seemed to have the momentum.

That was enough to alarm the leaders of Britain's three main political parties. In a rare show of unity, they promised to extend significant new powers of taxation to Scotland, while maintaining a formula for public spending that many English voters saw as favoring Scots with a higher spending per capita.

Alistair Darling, who had led the 'no' campaign, told supporters that the vote had reaffirmed the bonds underpinning the United Kingdom. "Let them never be broken," he said, calling the outcome "momentous."

"We have taken on the arguments and we have won," he said.

© 2014 The New York Times News Service