SCOTS VOTE ‘NAY’ ON INDEPENDENCE
Scots: Nay to freedom
Scottish voters have given a resounding “No” to a historic referendum that would have ended their 307year membership in the United Kingdom.
With all but one of the country’s 32 districts reporting as of early Friday morning, the nays had taken 55.42 percent of the vote, to 44.58 for the yeas.
A relieved British Prime Minister David Cameron, who avoided becoming the leader who lost Scotland — and, very possibly, his job for having approved the referendum in the f irst place — celebrated the news.
“I’ve spoken to Alistair Darling and congratulated him on an wellfought campaign,” Cameron tweeted.
Darling is the leader of the of the proUK Better Together campaign.
Those against independence also scored a big win by strongly taking Aberdeen, Scotland’s oil capital. In small con solation for the “Yes” side, the nation’s largest city, Glasgow, went for independence.
Voters turned out in unprecedented numbers for the referendum.
The average turnout was 86 percent — a record high for any Scottish election.
The Yes camp appeared resigned to defeat.
Saying she was “personally bitterly disappointed” by the results, prosecession pol Nicola Sturgeon, the Deputy Scottish National Party leader, told the BBC that Scottish nationalists “need to pick ourselves up and move on.”
After the polls closed late Thursday, a nationwide count began immediately.
Many Scots stayed up overnight in homes and bars, awaiting the result.
“Why not roll the dice for once?” independence supporter Thomas Roberts said at one Edinburgh polling station.
“I’m going to sit with a beer in my hand watching the re sults coming i n .”
At Highland Hall outside of Edinburgh, where the f inal result will be announced later Friday, votecounters at dozens of tables sorted through paper ballots, watched keenly by monitors from the the rival camps.
Eager voters had lined up outside some polling stations even before they opened Thursday.
More than 4.2 million people had registered to vote — 97 percent of those eligible — including residents as young as 16.
For some, it was a day they had dreamed of for decades. For others, the time had finally come to make up their minds about the future — both fo r themselves and fo r the United Kingdom.
“Fifty years I fought for this,” said 83yearold Isabelle Smith, a Yes supporter in Edinburgh.