Opinion And the noes have it
But even though Scotland chose to stay with the UK, profound questions linger on
The centre has held. By a 10-point margin — larger than expected — on a vast 86 per cent turnout, Scotland voted to stay in its troubled marriage to the United Kingdom. As David Cameron put it, the vote was a “triumph for democratic politics”, offering a peaceful model for prospective secessionists across Europe and the world. But though the panicked doom-and-gloom scenarios over the fate of the pound and the queen have been rendered irrelevant, the “no” vote will reverberate almost as noisily across the UK as a “yes” would have.
This victory for the union cannot be read as a vote for no change. Last week, when a YouGov poll put “yes” ahead for the first time, all Westminster politicians, from Cameron to Labour leader Ed Miliband, scurried north to vow to devolve more powers to Edinburgh. A sidelined Gordon Brown, who preceded Cameron as British PM, emerged as an unlikely hero for the unionists. But the race was never expected to get so close, and Cameron faces an insurrection from those within his party who believe that the cost of the “no” vote is too high.
He must now negotiate a tricky middle ground between the emergency sweeteners he and Brown promised the Scots and disgruntled Tory backbenchers, while addressing the question of devolution in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. He came out swinging on Friday morning, honouring Brown’s timetable for a detailed devolution package though clarifying that constitutional reforms would take place only after the next general election, and alongside similar measures in England. Cameron also threw down the gauntlet to the Labour opposition by addressing the so-called West Lothian question: Should Scottish MPs at Westminster continue to vote on devolved issues as they affect England when English MPs have no such say at Holyrood? Fashioning constitutional change is bound to be an exercise rife with difficulties, not least of which is reconciling different ideas of what devolution in areas like tax, spending and welfare should look like.
But Cameron must cobble together a consensus quickly, as a restive Scotland (and England, and Wales) demand more from a London elite increasingly seen to be out of touch. The vein of frustration the SNP and the “yes” campaign tapped into has not been exorcised.
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