GLASGOW, UK — So that’s it, then.
Scotland’s voters rejected independence Thursday by a margin of 55 to 45 percent, ending a two-year campaign and crushing the aspirations of 1.6 million voters who hoped Friday would be the start of a new nation.
In George Square in Glasgow — one of just four of Scotland’s 32 regions to vote for independence — a crowd of saltire-waving Yes supporters remained optimistic and defiant when the BBC first predicted a No vote around 5 a.m. Friday.
Within an hour, when it became clear that even Glasgow’s Yes vote wasn’t enough to swing the election, the mood changed. Men who stayed awake all night for the result dropped to their knees and cried.
“Gutted,” said Marjorie Collins, 66, as she sat on a bench watching the crowd disperse. “It’s the look of despair on these young people’s faces. I just can’t understand what happened. I knew Aberdeen would vote no, because of the oil. I hate to think it was the pensioners’ vote [that] did it.”
The retired childcare provider got up early to walk from her Glasgow flat to the square, hoping to find a victory celebration.
“I actually thought that there’d be history in the making,” she said. “Not this.”
It was history of a sort. Almost 85 percent of eligible voters participated, the highest turnout in UK history. An unprecedented number of voters registered — 97 percent — many of whom had never voted or been involved politically before.
For those experiencing their first taste of democracy, the defeat was especially bitter.
“It’s been rigged from the start,” said Melissa Tierney, 18, a Glasgow student who checked her phone on the street after leaving a club Friday morning and shouted over the No results pouring in.
“I’m a little bit angry. I’m on Facebook and everyone was voting yes. I don’t understand how it’s no,” she said. She wasn’t sure if she’d bother voting again.
So what happens now?
The UK may be spared the 18 months of intense negotiations that would have preceded Scotland’s planned independence in 2016.
The No vote, however, could shake things up all the same.
Politicians in Westminster now have to act on promises made to Scotland, particularly in the last two weeks of the campaign when it looked like the union might split.
Earlier this week, spurred on by former prime minister and Scottish MP Gordon Brown, the leaders of Britain’s three main political parties pledged “extensive new powers” for the Scottish Parliament following a No vote.
On Friday morning, Prime Minister David Cameron said details of Scotland’s new powers would be worked out by November and draft laws published in January.
These vague and hasty promises — which Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said in his concession speech must be “honored in rapid course” — now have to go through the UK Parliament. Some MPs have already said they’ll fight any requests for more money for Scotland.
What’s more, the vote has sparked some serious constitutional questioning in Wales, Northern Ireland and, intriguingly, England.
It’s the only one of the UK’s four countries that doesn’t have its own assembly. England-only laws are voted on by the UK-wide Parliament. The quirk, known as the “West Lothian question,” has long vexed English lawmakers.
“We have heard the voice of Scotland, and now the millions of voices of England must also be heard,” Cameron said before 10 Downing Street Friday morning.
“Just as Scotland will vote separately in the Scottish Parliament on their issues of tax, spending and welfare, so too England, as well as Wales and Northern Ireland, should be able to vote on these issues and all this must take place in tandem with, and at the same pace as, the settlement for Scotland.”
That raises its own issues. English nationalism is a different beast than the Scottish, Welsh or Irish kind. Those who identify with it are also more likely to identify with the right-wing UK Independence Party.
With the UK general election less than nine months away, things could get interesting.
For now, the task in Scotland is to knit the country back together after an often-contentious campaign, to soothe heartbroken and frustrated nationalists and to literally clean up the millions of stickers, placards and posters plastered from the highlands to the borders.
In George Square, the pavement was littered with streamers, stickers, beer bottles and tape spelling out “Scotland.” A final die-hard group of nationalists waved flags, sang and comforted each other as cops and journalists looked on.
“Typical Scots. They’ve lost, but they’re still partying,” said Thomas Doherty, 17.
The first-time voter said he was “disappointed but not distraught” at the result. The vote was over, he said, but not the fight.
“Give it a few years and it’ll be back. It won’t stop until we split,” he said. “The union will split. It’s just a matter of time.”
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