LONDON – The repercussions Scotland’s “no” vote for independence will reverberate in other regions of the world that are clamoring for statehood.
The Scottish vote was meant to be a tight race, with just a one or two percent victory for campaigners against independence.
Instead, the United Kingdom awoke Friday to a clear and decisive rejection of the bid for Scotland to separate from Great Britain. A resounding 10 percent majority ensured there could be no disputing the results.
Outside Scotland, nowhere was there more suspense than in Spanish Catalonia and Iraqi Kurdistan, where there was hope a win in Scotland would bolster local secessionist movements.
Pro-separatists from Iraqi Kurdistan, Spain’s Catalan and Basque regions as well as Quebec in Canada were in Scotland in large numbers to observe the Scottish experience first hand, observers had told Rudaw.
To them, Scotland’s “no” vote is a likely damper.
Voter turnout in Thursday’s referendum was the largest on record since the 1950s, with 85 percent of Scotland’s impassioned population hitting the polls.
“It confirms my worst fears. All the scaremongering and threatening and bullying by the media and Westminster has worked,” said Andrew Wilson, who owns a bookshop in Dumfries and Galloway.
While Wilson may see moves from Westminster as threatening, analysts this morning say it is British Prime Minster David Cameron’s last minute panic trip to Scotland that swung the vote.
Speaking on BBC’s Today Programme this morning, John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, said Cameron’s visit just days before the election, with offers of further devolution to the Scots, is what helped “yes” voters step back and change their minds.
On the same program, controversial UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage expressed concern about the British now having to deliver on those promises.
“The fact that three party leaders made promises on behalf of the 86 percent of the population that live in England… I don’t see any reason why I should stand by that,” he said. “I don’t see why I should stick by a commitment for further financial commitment to Scotland made by a panicking prime minister.”
During the transition period over the next few months, various issues will need to be worked out. Top of the list is parliamentary voting measures. Politicians are calling for policies to be drawn up to allow only English MPs to vote on English issues and similar protocols for Scotland, Ireland and Wales.
The Royal Bank of Scotland, which earlier vowed to move its headquarters to London in the event of a successful “yes” vote, has announced it will now remain in Scotland -- a positive influence on the markets, already resulting in a buoyed Sterling.
But for some Scots the very thing driving the debate -- strong emotions and national pride -- has created such a domestic divide that the heart-break could take some time to get over, Wilson said.
“It has been very divisive. I don’t speak to my neighbors. It’s brought differences to the head. It’s sort of broken the country.”
Kevin Witt, an Englishman living in Scotland for 13 years, had stood firmly behind the “yes” vote.
“My reaction is total despondency and fear that the last five years of austerity that’s happened down south will be in line for Scotland. I can see the gap between rich and poor getting wider. The only positive I see is that the campaign has gotten people politicized who have never been involved in politics before. “
Farmer Finn McCreath voted against independence.
“It is extraordinary how awkward social and domestic situations have become. It has been incredibly divisive. I know friends of ours where the husband wants independence and the wife is very firmly against it,” he said. “You wonder how people are going to move on.”
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