Scots Wha Nae

"Freeman stand, or Freeman fa'"
(Pic : The Telegraph)

It's a bit strange to say this, but unfortunately I was right.

As expected, Scotland has rejected independence by 55.3% to 44.7%. I predicted a no vote of 56-44 on an 80-85% turnout (actual figure 84.5%), so I was pretty much spot on.


Why the No side won

"The Positive Case for Union" as presented by Better Together.

It's too early to offer detailed reasons why the Scots rejected independence, but there are a few things you can pick up from the campaign itself.

"Project Fear" worked – If you generate too many uncertainties in people's minds, the likelihood that they would reject a proposition will no doubt increase. A feature of other independence referendums, like Quebec, is that the closer polling day gets, the more likely people will opt for the "safest option". As I said yesterday, a lot of wavering undecideds, "soft yes" and "shy no" voters probably verged on the side of the status quo and voted no at the last minute. It looks like postal votes went heavily in the no's favour too.

There were too many questions that weren't answered by the yes campaign at the right time and to the right extent - using currency as an example. Concerns over currency might seem technocratic, but it guides absolutely everything from high end macroeconomics to daily life.

Although the position of independence and things like currency are debatable (a currency union was nailed-on despite the bluster, it's in everyone's interests), the doubts were always there. After everything people have been through since the Great Recession they were perhaps less likely to take a fiscal risk.

Yes Scotland lost women and older voters early on – I wouldn't be surprised if, when the number-crunching is done, the referendum was lost amongst middle-age women and pensioners. The polling figures have long pointed towards this being the case.

Better Together very nearly blew it with "Patronising BT Woman", but – let's face it – the archetypal small-c conservative mother wanting to "think of the children" would probably back the status quo anyway. The advert was simply preaching to the choir, and was done to stop their vote shifting yes-ward. Also, an independent Scotland shouldn't have any problem meeting its welfare obligations, but do anything to even hint at threatening pensions or elderly entitlements and you lose older voters.

Despite Alex Salmond's clear political talent, by the end, the campaign turned a bit macho and triumphalist with echos of Labour in 1992. Nicola Sturgeon and other senior women MSPs and personalities should've had a more prominent role in the yes campaign, and you've got to wonder what impact Margo MacDonald would've had if she were still with us.

Yes Scotland took a gamble, hoping there would be a similar bounce to the one the SNP enjoyed in 2011, but they didn't quite pull it off. If the referendum were a month later, or that YouGov poll were a week later....who knows?

"Astroturfing" wasn't enough – Yes Scotland was a very well-organised, decentralised, grass-roots led campaign that crossed all sections of Scottish society. The Anglo-Scottish media and Westminster machine are still a giant though. Until the panicked last fortnight, there was latent but not outright bias by British media establishment. Then it became more obvious, and disgraceful, and should – quite rightly – damage the global and domestic reputation of the BBC.

Trying to control the debate up against such a media machine - and pretty much the entire Scottish domestic mainstream press (notable exceptions like The Sunday Herald aside) - was always going to be a struggle. To their credit, Yes Scotland very nearly pulled it off.

The internet clearly isn't the be all and end all of political debate it's being made out to be. But sites like Wings over Scotland and Bella Caledonia probably played a role is getting the yes vote to as high a position it did. The future of the Scottish blogosphere is looking very, very bright indeed to the point of becoming mainstream. The same can't be said in Wales, unfortunately.

The arguments were weak and incomplete – I've read Scotland's Future from cover to cover because it'll certainly help me build up my own Independence Index for however long I'm blogging. Despite the pdf version being more than 400+ pages long, it felt incomplete. There was minimal coverage of many of the things I've covered even on this blog like abortion (which was mentioned in passing), genetic engineering, stem cell research, net neutrality....

It would've been better to have produced separate, detailed white papers on things like defence and foreign affairs and released them gradually over the course of the campaign. It felt too much like a policy push from the SNP instead of a neutral look at the sort of (largely limitless) options independence would've brought Scotland. So although the Unionist campaign was somewhat disunited, you can say something similar of the Nationalists. I doubt Greens, republicans and socialists would've liked what was outlined in Scotland's Future.

By the end, despite the widespread public enthusiasm, the yes campaign became a competition about how many Facebook likes and retweets you can get over the quality of the argument. The big rallies and publicity stunts were mostly an mirage - it's a mistake Plaid Cymru think they'll be able to repeat in Wales. It might look good on camera, but there's not much there. You can fill a public square with hundreds, even thousands, of supporters but elections are decided by the hundreds of thousands who aren't there.

It all probably relied too much on emotional/romantic "heart" arguments and gradually neglected "head" arguments in order to whip people into a frenzy.

What happens next?

"Politicians make promise on the hoof."
Let's see where this is heading....
(Pic : BBC)

That's unclear, and in a twisted way there's perhaps more long-term uncertainty now than there would've been had Scotland voted yes. If they'd voted yes, they would've become independent circa 2016 and all the issues like currency, debt and EU membership would've been ironed out one way or another.

This isn't a crippling blow to Scottish nationalism and, if anything, if Westminster now fails to deliver on any of promises as a result of a no vote – or if there's some sort of pathetic "backlash" from the rest of the Union - all those who hesitantly voted no will vote yes in any future referendum. The momentum will still be with yes long after this vote, it'll just climb slower. With every single setback at Westminster, I fully expect  #ShouldveVotedYes to become a popular hashtag on the Scottish Twittersphere.

Now, instead of the certainty of independence, we have the uncertainty of constitutional fudging done on the back of a fag packet.

Although the UK will survive for the medium-term, Scotland's position remains awkward as it's still unclear what constitutional reforms will take place. It'll be odd if Scots have rejected the chance to control and shape things like foreign affairs, welfare and defence for the sake of controlling the "Work Programme" and rail franchises.

Westminster needs to play this carefully, and the Scottish Government still have a strong hand to get "Devo Max" out of them, which could settle the constitutional argument for several decades. Scotland could get as close to independence as possible without actually threatening the Union, like some sort of confederal arrangement.

The status quo would only have been a serious option if this had been a very strong no (70-80%) – like the 1979 devolution referendum in Wales. There's absolutely no way Westminster can roll back devolution either without prompting a serious constitutional crisis that – judging by the polarisation seen in Scotland – could turn nasty.

I suppose I've been slightly prophetic. Back in 2011, I compared the Scottish situation to Quebec, and that's precisely where were are now. The no vote wasn't a strong endorsement of the Union – but it was enough to win the day; while the yes vote was sizable enough to mean this is unlikely to be the end of the matter, despite failing.

Will we have "neverendums" in Scotland until they're ready to say yes? Alex Salmond has ruled it out for a least 18 years (not that he'll be SNP leader that long). So again, just as I said a few weeks ago – we'll probably return to this in the 2020s or 2030s. Sometimes I don't like being right.

I imagine David Cameron is a very, very relieved man. If this had been a yes vote it would've been very hard to see him continuing as Prime Minister. That doesn't let him, or the other two major Westminster parties, off the hook. Labour's campaigning was an absolute shower, while the Lib Dems were nowhere to be seen. If they don't realise how close they came to blowing it, and come to see this as a vote of confidence and not a last ditch call for radical constitutional reform, some very senior politicians need to take a long hard look at themselves. Judging by their initial reaction to the result, it looks like they realise the desire for concrete change.

To even get into a position to ask such a question is damaging to the Union. Of the officially-recognised independence referendums during the 19th and 20th centuries, most have eventually led to independence.

This will have caused no real problems for the SNP (or other parties that supported independence like the Greens and Scottish Socialists). This will go down as a glorious defeat, and they're nailed-on for a third term in government - even if they take a hit in 2016.

It's unclear what the future holds for Alex Salmond. He can, if he wants to, bow out with his head held high, or he can carry on the momentum into 2016 and beyond. With Alex Salmond stepping down, Nicola Sturgeon is a leader in waiting but will have to be careful not to oversee a split between centrist-liberal and more socialist wings of the SNP. If Scotland had voted yes I would've expected the SNP to have disbanded anyway into two or three separate parties, or bolster what remained of Labour, Greens, Conservatives etc.

On what happens to the rest of us, I'm convinced there won't be a grand pan-UK "Constitutional Convention". It looks as though any changes are going to be fast-tracked before the Westminster elections next year and that's simply not enough time to get decent proposals on the table. There's no doubt in my mind that Wales will get further powers down the line – especially over criminal justice – but it'll be a negotiation between Cardiff and London and will be unrelated to the independence referendum. Silk (Part I, Part II) is all we're getting.

Carwyn can say what he likes but it's not as if he's been listened to so far - something I said almost a year ago to the day. I might not be a journalist or have the inside track into what's happening in Cardiff Bay, but most of the time I do know what I'm talking about. I'm getting fed up of saying things months, sometimes years, in advance that "our betters" only cotton on to at the last minute. AMs - in particular Welsh Government ministers - appear to have a very inflated sense of their impact and influence.

It'll be interesting to see what will happen in Catalonia next, who will probably have received a psychological boost due to the close(ish) result (or a hit due to the no vote), and are moving towards their own independence referendum despite constitutional interference from Madrid.

You could compare this campaign to a very bruising Rocky-style 30-round heavyweight contest. In the end, both sides are completely battered, knackered and have sustained heavy injuries. The underdog Nationalist boxer might well have collapsed at the end from a few heavy punches, but the Unionist boxer – although standing – is walking off dribbling and completely unrecognisable.

The National Assembly is due to debate Scotland's decision next week, and of course I'll cover what's said.