Scotland votes no
by Tom Sullivan
In a historic referendum, Scotland yesterday voted to remain part of the United Kingdom. With a margin of 55% - 45%, the vote went solidly against Scottish independence in what one writer hyperbolically described as "the greatest existential challenge to the British state since Spitfire dogfights in 1940." Turnout was 84.5%. UK Prime Minister David Cameron pledged to honor agreements to yield more power to the Scottish parliament if Scotland rejected independence.
As Scots living abroad weighed in, Valerie Wallace in Wellington, New Zealand approved Scotland remaining in the UK.
Scotland is, in fact, already a separate country – but a separate country within a larger polity. I am a Scot, but I am also a Briton, and those two things for me have never been mutually exclusive. With Scottish parents, English grandparents, Irish ancestry and a Welsh name, my Britishness can’t just be ‘unmade’.
Perhaps, but there will be some long faces this morning among American secessionists, particularly in Texas.