Scot 'yes' chief sets exit after 'no' win

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond unexpectedly resigned Friday after voters rejected independence. Salmond said, “For me as leader, my time is nearly over, but for Scotland the campaign continues, and the dream shall never die.”
Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond unexpectedly resigned Friday after voters rejected independence. Salmond said, “For me as leader, my time is nearly over, but for Scotland the campaign continues, and the dream shall never die.”

EDINBURGH, Scotland -- Alex Salmond, who led Scotland's failed bid for independence, announced Friday that he would step down as first minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party later this year.

The unexpected announcement came the day after voters spurned the vision of Scottish sovereignty that had propelled his political career for decades, and decided in a referendum to continue Scotland's 307-year-old union with Britain.

The independence campaign he led sent shock waves through Britain's political elite and energized Scottish politics as rarely before. After starting far behind in the polls, the independence campaign appeared to close the gap in the increasingly suspenseful final weeks, and in some surveys it even seemed to take a slight lead.

But when the ballots from all 32 voting districts were tallied early Friday, the anti-independence "Better Together" campaign had won 55.3 percent of the vote.

Referring to the seats of the British and Scottish parliaments, Salmond said in a statement, "Today the point is this: The real guardians of progress are not the politicians at Westminster, or even at Holyrood, but the energized activism of tens of thousands of people who I predict will refuse meekly to go back into the political shadows.

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AP

A lone supporter of Scottish independence walks Friday in Edinburgh. The rejection of nationhood for Scotland was favored by Britain’s political leaders, who had campaigned to persuade Scots to stay in the United Kingdom.

"For me right now, therefore, there is a decision as to who is best placed to lead this process forward politically," he said. "I believe that in this new exciting situation -- redolent with possibility -- party, Parliament and country would benefit from new leadership."

Therefore, Salmond said, he will not stand for re-election as leader at his party's annual conference in November, and then will resign as first minister "to allow the new leader to be elected by due parliamentary process."

"We lost the referendum vote, but can still carry the political initiative," he said. "More importantly, Scotland can still emerge as the real winner."

Salmond did not identify a successor, but political analysts said his deputy, Nicola Sturgeon, who played a central role in the independence campaign, was likely to be a strong contender.

With its appeal for a fresh start, the independence campaign captured the imagination of a large section of Scottish electorate that was disillusioned with London politics. By contrast, the opposing side stressed the economic risks of breaking away from the U.K. and was accused of running a negative campaign.

All told, 2,001,926 votes were cast against leaving the U.K., compared with 1,617,989 votes favoring independence, according to Mary Pitcaithly, the chief counting officer. Nearly 85 percent of eligible voters cast ballots.

British political leaders promised Friday to heal the wounds opened by the referendum and begin work on sweeping changes to give new decision-making powers to Scotland and other parts of the country -- changes that the three main British political parties promised in the last days before the referendum, although they have yet to agree on specifics.

Negotiations on those changes are likely to be tortuous, and not just between London and the Scots.

"The old union we know is dead," said Carwyn Jones, the first minister of Wales. "We need to forge a new one. But no more committees, no more messing about, no more panicky deals -- it's time to sit together, all of us as four nations, and work this through." Northern Ireland is the fourth component of the United Kingdom, along with England, Scotland and Wales.

In Edinburgh, Salmond said earlier in the day that the 1.6 million votes cast for separation showed the depth of the desire for greater decision-making powers in Scotland.

"Today of all days, as we bring Scotland together, let us not dwell on the distance we have fallen short, let us dwell on the distance we have traveled," he said.

For Prime Minister David Cameron, whose job would have been on the line had the Scots voted to break away, the referendum results were an evident relief, though one tempered with an awareness that it may have won by his late promise of new powers for Scotland, which already controls health and education within its borders.

Cameron said Friday morning that there could be "no disputes, no reruns," and that the referendum had settled the independence debate "for a generation."

Queen Elizabeth II, who is precluded from intervening in politics, urged Scots on Friday to seek unity and work together in the wake of the vote.

"For many in Scotland and elsewhere today, there will be strong feelings and contrasting emotions -- among family, friends and neighbors," she said in a statement from her Scottish castle at Balmoral. "Now, as we move forward, we should remember that, despite the range of views that have been expressed, we have in common an enduring love of Scotland, which is one of the things that helps to unite us all."

With 55 percent of Scots casting their ballots in favor of staying in the U.K. and 45 percent who would rather leave, the vote pitted husband against wife, mother against son, and brother against brother in many homes across Scotland.

"There is a split, it's there now," said Vincent Ivanski of Glasgow, who opposed independence while his wife, Fiona, supported it. "People voted for yes and no in about equal measures. How do you move on from that?"

After dark on Friday, divisions flared in George Square, where hundreds of hard-liners from Glasgow's Protestant loyalist community taunted a smaller group of pro-independence activists.

Police spent hours protecting the Scottish nationalists from the much larger pro-union crowd, who waved British flags, chanted "Rule Britannia!" and used flares to burn Scottish flags. There were no reports of arrests or injuries.

To heal such divisions, the Church of Scotland planned to hold a service of reconciliation Sunday at Edinburgh's St. Giles Cathedral, urging the nation to unite.

'Lesson in Democracy'

The U.S., NATO alliance and European Commission, the executive body of the 28-nation European Union, welcomed the rejection of the referendum that had encouraged separatists in other parts of Europe and elsewhere.

Walter Frank Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, noted that the vote was good for the stability of "Scotland, the United Kingdom and Europe."

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who is faced with two regions that want to break away -- Catalonia and the Basque country -- sent out a video message praising the vote for taking place "en masse, peacefully and with scrupulous respect for the legality of its country."

His government has refused to recognize a Catalonian call for its own independence referendum, saying Spain's Constitution doesn't allow referendums that don't include all Spaniards.

But Artur Mas, the head of Catalonia's regional government, said Friday that Scotland had provided "a great lesson in democracy" and urged Rajoy to follow Cameron's example and permit Catalonians to decide their fate.

"To think you can shut up a Catalan society that wants to vote isn't going to work in a democracy of the 21st century," Mas said in Barcelona.

Later Friday, the Catalan parliament voted 106-28 to give Mas the power to call an independence referendum. Mas didn't say when he would sign the decree to set the vote date.

Unlike the Scotland vote, the referendum in Catalonia wouldn't result in secession. It would ask Catalans whether they favor secession. If the answer is yes, Mas said, that would give him a political mandate to negotiate a path toward independence.

Andoni Ortuzar, chairman of the Basque National Party, suggested that the Scottish rejection of independence would have no effect on Basque efforts for autonomy.

"Whatever happens in Scotland is not connected to what is happening in the Basque country," he said.

In northern Italy, where there is a movement for the South Tyrol region to break away from Italy and join Austria, Phillip Achammer, chairman of the South Tyrolean People's Party, said the peaceful nature of the vote in Scotland had shown all Europeans that such referendums were a proper way forward.

"More than ever, the European Union should be prepared to have a sincere debate about a genuine Europe of regions," he was quoted as saying.

Across the Atlantic, members of Quebec's movement to break away from Canada also had hoped the Scottish vote would give their own floundering ambitions a boost.

After the results were announced, Alexandre Cloutier of the separatist Parti Quebecois made a point to emphasize the positives.

"The Scottish people rejected the status quo," Cloutier said. "The 'no' side made promises to the 'yes' side. It's the end of the first chapter, and now the second opens with negotiations with London."

Information for this article was contributed by Alan Cowell, Steven Erlanger, Stephen Castle, Raphael Minder, Katrin Bennhold and Michael D. Shear of The New York Times; by Matthew Schofield of McClatchy Newspapers; and by Alan Clendenning, Joseph Wilson, Jill Lawless, Danica Kirka, Shawn Pogatchnik and Paul Kelbie of The Associated Press.

A Section on 09/20/2014

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