On Thursday, Sept. 18, voters in Scotland went to the polls in unprecedented numbers and decided that the country should not become an independent state, by a projected 55 percent to 45 percent.
Come March 24, 2016, Scotland will not be detaching itself from England as “Yes” voters had hoped before heading to the polls on Sept. 18.
“Fifty years I fought for this,” Isabelle Smith, an 83-year-old Yes supporter said before the polls closed, according to Huffington Post. “And we are going to win. I can feel it in my bones,” she projected.
Sadly for Isabelle, her prediction did not come true.
“No matter what, Scotland will never, ever be the same again,” she added. That much is true.
Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond admitted defeat on Sept. 19, thanking Scotland in a televised statement, “for 1.6 million votes for Scottish independence.”
Campaigning for the change has been going on for months, and it has generated intense public debate and participation.
And the passionate debates make sense because earlier polls suggested the result was too close to call. A final Ipsos MORI poll released Sept. 18 put support for the No side at 53 percent and Yes at 47 percent. But the phone survey of 991 people has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The fate of Scotland’s 307-year-old union with England came down to the very final moments of voting, which is why many Yes supporters stayed up late in bars, or gathered in symbolic spots, overlooking Edinburgh, awaiting the results.
Following the results, there would have been 18 months of negotiations between Scottish leaders and London-based politicians on how the two countries will separate their institutions before Scotland’s planned Independence Day of March 24, 2016, according to Huffington Post.
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