ThatBritishGuy
September 19th, 2014, 03:42 PM
Hey guys, as many of you know Scotland held a referendum yesterday on whether to become an independent country. Today the results were announced with 55% percent of voters voting to stay in the UK, against 45% who voted for independence.
While this is a huge deal in the UK, as it could change the political landscape of the country forever, it is probably less reported and understood outside, so I thought I'd post a link to a couple of articles about it.
(Just thought I'd point out that as an English guy, I could not vote on the issue and as such was impartial during the vote, however I am glad that they decided to stay with us.)
BBC article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-29270441
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".
Mr 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.
http://images.forbes.com/media/lists/11/2007/88G5.jpg
(Random picture of the queen to go with the article)
While this is a huge deal in the UK, as it could change the political landscape of the country forever, it is probably less reported and understood outside, so I thought I'd post a link to a couple of articles about it.
(Just thought I'd point out that as an English guy, I could not vote on the issue and as such was impartial during the vote, however I am glad that they decided to stay with us.)
BBC article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-29270441
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".
Mr 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.
http://images.forbes.com/media/lists/11/2007/88G5.jpg
(Random picture of the queen to go with the article)