The (still) united kingdom
Your marriage is creaking somewhat. Things are so serious that you're already contemplating a split-up. You even file the divorce documents, although your S.O. will have none of it. But in the last moment, the arguments for preserving your relationship prevail by a tiny margin, and you make a step back. You remain together, but the damage has been done - your relations that were already in splinters have suffered a hard blow. So how do you think, what are your chances of living together happily ever after?
Well, that's how Scotland and Britain are like, right now. Their 300+ y.o. union may've survived, but although 55% of the Scots said "No" to seceding the other day, the political shake-up in the wake of that vote is sure to keep echoing for quite a while now.
No doubt, the feeling of relief must've been immense in some circles. But no one had expected that the tension would be so huge, either. And all questions starting with "What if Scotland secedes" will remain alarmingly real. And these vary from curious ponderings on whether the remainder of UK would have to keep the Union Jack, to serious issues like what currency the new independent state would be using, and how severely Britain's international standing would suffer.
The polls used to predict a comfortable 20-point lead for the "No" camp until just a couple of weeks ago. Then the separatists made a remarkable surge, just at the eve of the referendum. And that sharpened the rhetoric on both sides. The "Yes" camp, dominated by the SNP of prime-minister Alex Salmond, conducted a very aggressive propaganda campaign. For the last two months, the ruling Scottish party hired a number of ultra-leftist advocates who worked together with SNP's radical faction for neutralizing the opposition. These practices, unprecedented in the history of Britain's modern democracy, were used because Salmond believed that his party had just this one chance of gaining independence for the country. So they acted by the "the goal justifies the means" principle.
Those who wanted to preserve the Union, in turn, bet on hyping up the dangers of secession, which was logical. But their campaign became too negative and created the impression that they were mere scaremongers who wanted to frighten people into submission or something. The "No" camp had no other choice but to draw the focus on the ill-thought, naive plans of a future post-British state. But it would've been way better if they had combined that with an emphasis on the fact that Scotland is important and successful in the modern world exactly thanks to its relation with Britain, and that Scottish patriotism has only been able to flourish within the Union - while there were no guarantees that people would continue to be proud of their Scottish identity in an independent, but economically unviable country. Words like "a failed state in the making" were often to be heard on that side of the debate.
No doubt, if Scotland had said "Yes", that would've been a political cataclysm equivalent to a 9-Richter earthquake. But the "No" will also resonate way beyond the boundaries of the old Albion. The vote has shown that more than a million and a half of the 5 million Scotsmen want to leave "Great" Britain, even if that'd make them a tad less prosperous. The shocking conclusions are at least two: first, Scotland is a highly polarized society; and two, although the Union may've survived for the time being, the State of the Union, so to speak, is not that good at all.
It's hard to imagine how Scotland would be a normal country in the political sense in the next few years. Divisions run right across families and communities. The SNP's aggressiveness and arrogance, and their strategy of demonizing England as being "the bad Other", means that the Anglo-Scottish relations will be damaged for a long time ahead. The best chance of bridging these rifts would be if SNP is headed by someone who's not such a blatant demagogue like Alex Salmond. But alas.
The Scottish politicians will have a difficult task on their hands now: uniting Scotland again. They'll have to take urgent actions. Because one of the consequences of this referendum is that things won't remain the same any more. And the question is, in what direction they'll be changing. Now is a dangerous time for Scotland. That's the main concern in an otherwise relieved and maybe a bit jubilant Britain: that keeping Scotland within the Union would come at a steep price. Cameron's exhausted government has been promising Scotland more rights and autonomy, but since the PM has talked of putting that in a whole package that'd include a reform in the way the rest of Britain is being run, there's a concern that the promise won't be that simple and quick to be honored.
Now the debate is not just independence from the status quo, but independence from a more influential Scottish parliament. Former British PM Gordon Brown (himself a Scot, who got urgently involved in the debate in the last moment, and may've largely swayed the undecided voters towards the "No" with the speech of his life on the last day), has called London's proposal to Edinburgh "a modern form of Scottish self-rule", including enhanced control on the finances, taxes, and the social issues of that proud nation.
But this will probably prompt Wales, and maybe other regions of the country, to seek greater autonomy. As Cameron has already announced, giving more prerogatives to the Scottish parliament will be coupled with constitutional reform of the status of the English MPs. Because, otherwise the question would arise how come the Scottish MPs at Westminster can vote on issues that will be transferred to Edinburgh, while their English counterparts won't be voting on the same issues regarding Scotland. And the populist UKIP would probably do their best to amass even more political points, capitalizing on public discontent from that situation.
Actually the most intriguing question is, what effect will this result have on a possible referendum on UK's departure from the EU, which Cameron is eyeing for 2017. If Scotland had walked away, London's divorce with Brussels may've seemed far more probable, due to the considerable loss of Labour influence at Westminster (ironically, Cameron was compelled to bet his political career on the Scottish leftists who loathe him in his guts). But now, the preservation of a somewhat unhappy marriage may well be able to save another, not-so-harmonious one.