“No” has won. Stay up if you like. If you choose to, there’ll be some fantastic coverage here on Telegraph Blogs. But it’s over. “No” has won; they'd won before the latest and final YouGov poll called it for No, 54-46.
They didn’t win because of Gordon Brown’s dramatic and passionate intervention. Or because of David Cameron’s emotional appeals. Or because of Ed Miliband’s brave attempt to take his message directly to voters on the streets.
They won two and a half years ago when the referendum was first announced. Scotland, for reasons best known to itself, doesn’t want to be an independent nation.
Throughout this campaign there has never been a single moment when the “Yes” campaign has been ahead. For all the madness of the past two weeks, the history books will show this – there was only one poll, one solitary, rogue poll, that showed the people of Scotland voting for independence.
But because of that poll, the constitutional settlement of the UK has been torn apart. Or it hasn’t been torn apart. Scotland has been guaranteed “Home Rule”. The rest of us have been told we are about the become members of a federal Britain. And why? Because half a dozen people told a pollster they might tick that tiny box marked “Yes”. I wonder how many of them actually did?
The 2014 Scottish referendum campaign is over. Now the trouble begins.
TWEET YOUR COMMENT