News desk :Scotland has voted to stay in the United Kingdom after voters decisively rejected independence.With the results in from all 32 council areas, the “No” side won with 2,001,926 votes over 1,617,989 for “Yes”.Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond called for unity and urged the unionist parties to deliver on more powers.Prime Minister David Cameron said he was delighted the UK would remain together and that commitments on extra powers would be honoured “in full”.Cameron said the three main unionist parties at Westminster would now follow through with their pledge of more powers for the Scottish Parliament.He announced that Lord Smith of Kelvin, who led Glasgow’s staging of the Commonwealth Games, would oversee the process to take forward the commitments, with new powers over tax, spending and welfare to be agreed by November, and draft legislation published by January.The prime minister also acknowledged that the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland must have a bigger say over their affairs.And he promised a solution to the West Lothian question – the fact that Scottish MPs can vote on English issues at Westminster, and not the other way round.Shortly afterwards, Salmond said he accepted the defeat and called for national unity.He said the referendum and the high turnout (nearly 85%) had been a “triumph for the democratic process” and promised to keep his pledge in the Edinburgh Agreement which paved the way for the referendum to respect the result.He told supporters: “The unionist parties made vows late in the campaign to devolve more powers to Scotland.”Scotland will expect these to be honoured in rapid course – as a reminder, we have been promised a second reading of a Scotland Bill by March 27 next year.Meanwhile, supporters of Scottish independence reacted with bitter disappointment on Friday as their hopes of breaking away from Britain were dashed, with some breaking down in tears in the streets of Edinburgh.Many had stayed up all night in the hope of a new dawn for their nation but instead had to accept defeat on a grey, rainy morning in Scotland’s capital. “My feeling was just crushing, quite devastating,” said 16-year-old Charlotte Darroch, who was at Edinburgh’s main counting centre wearing her school uniform, her tie pinned with “Yes” badges and a Scottish flag wrapped around her shoulders. “We all felt it was going to go the other way. I genuinely thought the feeling on the ground was different. I don’t think people realised quite how important this was,” she added.One of thousands of under 18s given the vote for the first time ever in Britain, Darroch pledged not to give up hope after 1.6 million people, more than a third of the electorate, voted for independence. “This isn’t the end of the ‘Yes’ campaign,” she said.Outside the Scottish Parliament, “Yes” voters Paddy Burns and Rikki Maclean were walking home after spending all night at a friend’s house watching the results. “They (the ‘No’ voters) have said we’re not up to the task of governing ourselves and that kills me,” said Burns, a 23-year-old barman. “All we have to do is pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and keep making our voices heard until we get self-determination.”Maclean added it was now vital for Prime Minister David Cameron to deliver on his promise to devolve more power back to the Scottish people. “I think it’s going to be really difficult and there’s going to be a lot of people clanging their heads together”, the 32-year-old theatre manager said. “If these powers aren’t given, that will spark an even bigger upswelling of people.”Back at the count centre, “No” supporter Louise Fleming, 21, said she was “relieved” and planned to head off for a fried breakfast before going to bed.”I’ve been up for over 24 hours,” she said. “It’s been such a divisive referendum… we can’t expect everything to be great tomorrow but the right outcome has occurred.”
