After Losing Scottish Independence Vote, Alex Salmond Will Resign

EDINBURGH - Voters in Scotland rejected independence from Britain in a referendum that had threatened to break up their 307-year union, according to an official count on Friday from almost all voting areas.

Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish National Party and first minister of Scotland, who led the campaign for secession, conceded defeat in an address to cheering supporters. 'I accept the verdict of the people,' he said. 'And I call on all the people of Scotland to accept the democratic verdict of the people of Scotland.'

The vote was a decisive 55-45 against independence. Mr. Salmond stressed that, even though the anti-independence campaign had prevailed, some 1.6 million Scottish residents had voted to end the union, providing what he termed a 'substantial' bloc of support to press for new powers promised by political leaders in London.

Before dawn, after a night of counting that showed a steady trend in favor of maintaining the union, Nicola Sturgeon, the deputy head of the pro-independence Scottish National Party, effectively conceded defeat for the 'yes' campaign that had pressed for secession.

'Like thousands of others across the country I've put my heart and soul into this campaign and there is a real sense of disappointment that we've fallen narrowly short of securing a 'yes' vote,' Ms. Sturgeon told BBC television, with 26 of 32 voting areas having reported results.

Shortly after Ms. Sturgeon's comments, Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland and seat of its Parliament, reported a huge gain for the 'no' camp, with more than 194,000 voters rejecting independence compared with almost 124,000 in favor. Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland, had voted in favor of secession by a lower margin.

The decision spared Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain a shattering defeat that would have raised questions about his ability to continue in office and diminished his nation's standing in the world.

But while the result preserved a union molded in 1707, it left Mr. Cameron facing a backlash among some of his Conservative Party lawmakers. They were angered by the promises of greater Scottish autonomy that he and other party leaders made just days before the vote, when it appeared that the independence campaign might win. Some lawmakers called for similar autonomy for England itself, and even the creation of a separate English Parliament.

Graphic: Scottish Independence Vote Balances Politics and Economics

The outcome headed off the huge economic, political and military imponderables that would have flowed from a vote for independence. But it also presaged a looser, more federal United Kingdom. And it was unlikely to deter Scottish nationalists from trying again.

The passion of the campaign also left Scots divided, and Mr. Salmond was expected to call later on Friday for reconciliation after a vibrant exercise in democracy that had episodes of harshness and even intimidation.

President Obama had made little secret of his desire that the United Kingdom remain intact. Indeed, Britain had long prided itself on a so-called special relationship with the United States, and Britain's allies had been concerned by, among other things, Mr. Salmond's vow to evict Britain's nuclear submarine bases from Scotland, threatening London's role in Western defenses.

As the vote approached, the margin between the two camps narrowed to a few percentage points, and at one point, the 'yes' campaign seemed to have the momentum.

That was enough to alarm Britain's political leaders from the three main parties in the Westminster Parliament in London. In a rare show of unity, they promised to extend significant new powers of taxation to Scotland, while maintaining a formula for public spending that many English voters saw as favoring Scots with a higher per-capita contribution.

Voters remained divided to the very end.

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