Scottish independence referendum: Scotland votes no - as it happened

American readers may be interested in this explanation of why Scotland voting for independence would be so historic.

(Except Scotland doesn’t seem to be voting for independence ...)

Esther Addley, who is at the northernmost count in Lerwick, Shetland, writes:

There was muted applause but quiet delight from the Better Together camp in Lerwick’s Clickimin Leisure Centre when the Shetland result, 63.7% No to 36.3% Yes, was announced shortly before 3am.

Pro-independence campaigners had been muted for some time, after it became apparent that the result, always predicted to go against them in Shetland, looked set to be emphatic.

But there was a determination to continue fighting from some. Brian Nugent, one of the most prominent local Yes campaigners, said: ‘So in Shetland we have voted to remain in foodbank Britain, in austerity Britain, with a Tory government, ably supported by its Liberal accomplices. See you in a few years when the people will demand we do this again.’

Charles Gallagher, the local SNP convener, raised both fists and declared he was ‘still fighting’. ‘If it’s no at the end of the night, then I would say - deliver. Because if they don’t there will be a bloodbath.’

Tavish Scott, the Lib Dem MSP for Shetland, said he was ‘pleased that on a huge turnout Shetland has voted for a stronger Scottish Parliament within the UK.’

The lesson of the election in Shetland, he said, ‘is that a vast number of people have voted and therefore we are being told by the electorate to deliver on our promises. All the UK parties now have no room for manoevre. The public will not wear, on this huge turnout, anyone ducking that commitment, and that’s a good thing’.

Guardian leader writer and polling expert Tom Clark is at the count in Edinburgh, and providing us with analysis of the results throughout the night.

He asks what the fallout of a no vote will be - in particular in terms of the pledge the three UK party leaders signed to give more powers to Scotland.

People in Scotland are getting worried - rightly worried, I’d say - about whether the pledge will be delivered at all.

The clock is ticking before the next general election in May next year, and the plans may well not be agreed by then, especially since some English MPs and peers are pretty unhappy about them.

The yes camp has been dominated by the SNP, but it is not just an SNP effort and it includes other partners. One of the most important of those is the Scottish Green party.

Patrick Harvie is the co-convenor of the Scottish Greens. And it sounds as if he is conceding.

Here are the results for Eilean Siar (formerly the Western Isles).

No: 10,544 (53.42%)

Yes: 9,195 (46.58%)

Turnout: 86.2%

On Sky News the polling expert Michael Thrasher says that, if the pattern of the first four results is repeated across Scotland, Scotland will vote no by a larger margin than the pollsters predicted.

Ewen MacAskill has spent the last few weeks following Alex Salmond’s yes campaign and wrote this in-depth piece about the Scottish National party leader on Friday. He sends the following on what tonight’s referendum results could mean for Salmond:

Scotland’s first minister Alex Salmond can claim a win of sorts in spite of the apparently disappointing showing of the independence campaigners in the referendum.

He can claim he has wrested promises of more devolution for the Scottish parliament from the UK party leaders David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg. When I spoke to him on the campaign trail on Wednesday, he seemed to relish the prospect of Cameron trying to placate his Conservative backbenchers.

He has managed to push support for independence up from around 30-35%, where it had hovered for decades, to possibly somewhere in the mid-40s, and to have created a bloc of enthusiastic young supporters.

Salmond has made lots of enemies in his rise through the ranks of the Scottish National party, enemies who have kept silent during the referendum but who are unlikely to stay quiet for much longer. Criticism is likely of his failure to anticipate the currency row and to come up with an alternative plan. There might be criticism too that the campaign was too presidential, with other members of the cabinet more-or-less kept on the sidelines.

Salmond, who is only 59, has said he will not resign and intends to continue as first minister until the Scottish parliamentary elections in 2016. But he emphatically refused to be drawn on what he planned to do after that.

Here is John Harris at the Falkirk count, which should declare soon.

Michael Gove, the Conservative chief whip, is on the BBC now. He says the constitutional reform for England being proposed by David Cameron will be some version of “English votes for English laws”.

Last year a commission chaired by Sir William McKay produed a report setting out some ideas for how this could be achieved. The report was shelved, on the grounds that it was too contentious. But, from what Gove is saying, it sounds like it has been taken off the shelf and dusted down, and that Cameron may be looking at it seriously now.

Here’s the Guardian story about the McKay Commission. And here’s an extract.

The McKay commission insisted that, to avoid destabilising parliament and creating two classes of MP, their proposals would not allow English MPs a right of veto over laws passed by the government. But it said the overarching principle with England-only bills was that any government should act with the consent of English MPs, unless it had good reason not to.

“The status quo clearly cannot be sustained,” McKay said. “Our proposals retain the right of a UK-wide majority to make the final decisions where they believe UK interests or those of a part of the UK other than England should prevail. We expect that governments will prefer compromise to conflict.”

The commission says a number of procedures can be used in the early stages of a bill, including: a grand committee of all English MPs; a special bill committee set up to amend legislation; or separate votes on different clauses that might be England-only. In some cases, where a bill also affected Wales, the same measures could be used. AS

Eilean Siar (formerly the Western Isles) is about to declare.

Michael Thrasher, the elections expert, has just told Sky News that, on his analysis, this and Dundee should be the best areas for the yes camp.

Here’s the Sheltand result.

No: 9,951 (63.7%)

Yes: 5,669 (36.3%)

Turnout: 84%

Shetland was always seen as a strong area for no. The Credit Suisse analysis gave it a yes rating of 0/10.