EDINBURGH b Scotland chose decisively against independence on Thursday, but it was not a vote for the status quo in Britain.
The debate over regional and national autonomy that was set off by the Scots has just begun, and it promises a constitutional shake-up in the United Kingdom, which remains intact but by no means fixed or unchallenged.
While the outcome of the vote was met with tremendous relief from Downing Street and Buckingham Palace to Brussels and Washington, Britain was also awakening to the realization on Friday that it had agreed to grant the Scots considerable new powers to run their own affairs. Prime Minister David Cameron now faces a broader debate over the centralization of power in London, uncertainty over Britainbs place in Europe, intense budget pressures, and fissures within his own Conservative Party as he heads toward a general election campaign in the spri
Nearly 45 percent of Scots voted on Thursday to abandon the United Kingdom forever, but when the ballots from all 32 voting districts were tallied early Friday, the b nob campaign had won 55.3 percent of the vote, ensuring a more powerful Scotland within Britain.
The victory of the b Better Togetherb camp was ensured late in the campaign when all three main political leaders from Westminster b Mr. Cameron, the Labour Party leader Ed Miliband and the Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg b jointly promised b extensive new powersb to the Scottish Parliament over taxing, spending and welfare, while also pledging to continue the budget allowance Scotland gets, a generous allowance per capita compared with what the rest of Britain receives.
Alex Salmond, Scotlandbs first minister, who led the independence fight, called for reconciliation on Friday and then, visibly dejected, announced that he would step down in November. But he made it clear that Scotland would hold the party leaders to their last-minute promises, which Parliament must turn into law, even if the three parties have not quite agreed on the details.
Mr. Cameron was immediately faced with criticism from his own Conservative Party about the blithe manner of the promising and the possible expense. More interesting, perhaps, many legislators said that if Scotland received still more power over its finances, it was time for England to gain more, too. Some even suggested a separate English parliament, like the ones in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
One of the great anomalies of the British system, as it has developed, is that England is subject to the laws of Parliament in which Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish legislators vote. But Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own parliaments that rule, without any English say-so, on many important regional matters.
Mr. Cameron on Friday vowed to fix that anomaly. b We now have a chance b a great opportunity b to change the way the British people are governed,b he said, b and change it for the better.b He gave no specifics, but said: b 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.b
And all that, he asserted, b must take place in tandem with, and at the same pace as, the settlement for Scotland,b with draft legislation supposedly ready by January, which is considered unlikely, given that it must be negotiated with all three main parties. But few expect such important legislation to be enacted before the general election in May.
Mr. Cameron also has an eye on the general election, his own restive party, the rise of the English nationalist United Kingdom Independence Party to his right and, to his left, the uninspiring performance of his opponent Mr. Miliband in arguing for continued union in Scotland.
Mr. Cameron clearly sees another advantage to an English parliament. Given his partybs relative strength in England, it would tighten the Conservativesb grip on power, even with left-wing Scotland, with 41 Labour members of Parliament, remaining in the United Kingdom.
The vote in Scotland also has implications for Britainbs membership in the European Union. Scotland is adamantly pro-European, and should Mr. Cameron remain prime minister after the May elections, he would have a better chance of winning a 2017 referendum he promised on British membership in the European Union with Scotland voting on it.
Mujtaba Rahman, European director for the Eurasia Group, a political and economic consulting firm, said that b a bnob vote does not mean no change.b
Results by Region
Percentage Point Difference
-15
-10
-5
0
5
10
15%
Voted no
Voted yes
Scotland
Aberdeen
Edinburgh
Glasgow
The promises of decentralization b made by London to Scotland to secure the bnob victory will lead to claims for similar powers from Wales and Northern Ireland,b he said, b forcing constitutional changes to how England is governed, either through a new national parliament or strengthened federal entities.b
Alistair Moffat, a Scottish historian, said: b What lies ahead is a federal Britain.b Peter Hain, a Labour legislator who has served as secretary of state for both Wales and Northern Ireland, said that b the genie is out of the bottleb on constitutional change. b We need to recognize the reality that the United Kingdom should have a federal political structure with a constitutional arrangement which defines the demarcation of powers between Westminster and the rest of the United Kingdom,b he told Reuters.
But it would be an oddly unbalanced federalism, given that England represents 85 percent of the population, as the consulting firm Oxford Analytica pointed out on Friday.
It is not clear that the English want an extra layer of government, and generally they have preferred it be run from Westminster, resisting regional councils and elected mayors. That attitude might be changing, but it is also possible that the government will come up with less radical ideas, such as simply providing more money to the local authorities to deal with broader issues or creating special England-only committees in Parliament to examine laws that affect only England, and not the b Union,b as the United Kingdom is called.
The larger question, of course, is what does the b Unionb mean in an age of decentralization and incipient federalism?
Leaders from Britain, Scotland, Spain and the European Commission spoke after Scotland rejected independence from Britain in a referendum.
Publish Date September 19, 2014. Image CreditAndrew Milligan/Press Association, via Associated Press
Mr. Cameron has always had problems articulating what b British valuesb are, beyond decency and fairness. Even Gordon Brown, the former Labour prime minister and a Scot whose exhortations to reject the referendum played a role in its outcome, has called for a b statement of national purpose.b
Jason Cowley, writing of b A Shattered Unionb in the New Statesman, sees deeper centrifugal forces at work b cleaving the United Kingdom.b He cited b the end of empire, deindustrialization, the decline of cross-border working-class solidarity, the weakening of Protestantism and of the trade unions, as well as a general anti-politics, bstuff themb attitude.b
What can save the United Kingdom from becoming the United Nothing, as one Scot put it, may be exactly what Scotland has secured: maximum regional powers. Mr. Salmond, b whose political mission from the outset was to break the Union,b writes Mr. Cowley, b might end up creating the conditions in which it could be remade and thus saved.b
Others were less optimistic. Matthew Parris, a former Conservative legislator, wrote in The Times of London that b the Union is dead,b killed off by decentralization.
b To survive, the Union had to be an affair of the heart, and the heartbeat started faltering decades ago, at devolution,b he said. But b the pulse failedb when Mr. Brown b carelessly, disgracefully promised bnothing less than a modern form of home ruleb for Scotland, and the three panicking Westminster party leaders, whose nerves had failed, backed him.b
More autonomy for Scotland is practically independence, Mr. Parris said, and b must lead to home rule for England.b And that, he said, not only implies an English parliament but an English government, too. A federal Britain may be the result, he concluded, b but the Union is lost.b