Scots 'no' vote still leaves Cameron facing demands for change

Scotland's vote against independence has left Prime Minister David Cameron and opposition leader Ed Miliband bruised and battered, and the fallout is set to continue through their party conferences over the next two weeks and into May's general election and beyond.

While the 55 percent "no" vote has kept the 307-year-old U.K. together, there's anger in Cameron's Conservative Party and Miliband's Labour movement that Scotland came so close to breaking away. Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg joined his fellow leaders in pledging sweeping concessions over taxes and spending to keep the Scots in the union, and English lawmakers are asking what's in it for their constituents.

"Talk about feeding an addiction," Conservative lawmaker James Gray wrote of the proposals for more Scottish powers on his website. "The more you give them, the more they want, and we would be back with calls for independence within a decade or sooner. For too long the rights and interests of the 55 million people of England have been subordinated to the shouting of 4.5 million Scots. That must end."

The opposition from lawmakers may mean the need for more constitutional change, distracting the parties as they bid to focus on the economy and Britain's membership in the European Union, the subject of another possible referendum in 2017. There have been calls for an English Parliament to mirror the role of the Scottish legislature and restrictions on the votes of Scottish members of the House of Commons.

Cameron is "anxious to ensure that, after this referendum campaign, we can bring the United Kingdom together," Conservative Chief Whip Michael Gove said in televised comments as the referendum results came in.

He added: "We need to look again at the arrangements which look after the people who live in the majority of the United Kingdom, and I think the Prime Minister in particular will be spelling out some ways forward which will allow Westminster to change how it operates in order to ensure that the interests of English voters are effectively protected -- indeed enhanced."

That view is shared by Cameron's coalition partners.

"A vote against independence was clearly not a vote against change and we must now deliver on time and in full the radical package of newly devolved powers to Scotland," Clegg said in an e-mailed statement. "At the same time, this referendum north of the border has led to demand for constitutional reform across the United Kingdom as people south of the border also want more control and freedom in their own hands rather than power being hoarded in Westminster."

A survey of House of Commons lawmakers yesterday found 63 percent who said the "Barnett formula" for calculating the distribution of U.K. government funding to Scotland should be overhauled. During the referendum campaign, all three party leaders pledged to keep the formula, which ensures Scotland receives 1,623 pounds ($2,670) per head more than the rest of the U.K.

If Parliament votes not to honor the pledges made before the referendum, there will be a backlash from Scots, 50 percent of whom said they did not believe the promises would be kept, according to a poll of 1,156 voters by Opinium Research LLP between Sept. 12 and 15.

"We need quite quickly and determinedly to demonstrate good faith in terms of devolution, giving the Scottish Parliament the powers that it needs," Liberal Democrat Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael told reporters at the count in Edinburgh today. "Look at what happened in Quebec. In 1980 they voted no, the government didn't implement the reforms it had promised, and 15 years later they were back."

Still, one leading Scottish Labour figure urged caution.

"British politics is going to change, but we should not rush into it," Jim Murphy, Labour's international development secretary, who toured Scotland in the campaign making the case against independence, told reporters in Glasgow. "This referendum campaign was a marathon, we shouldn't sprint towards a U.K. constitutional change until we have thought it through properly."

Still, undercurrents of dissent within the main parties against their leaders may bubble up at the party conferences, which begin with Labour's in Manchester, northern England, in two days' time, just as Cameron, Clegg and Miliband are trying to rally their troops for what looks like being a tight election next year.

Labour has a steady lead of 3 to 4 percentage points in opinion polls over Cameron's Conservatives, but the 2015 election may be more difficult to call than normal.

It's unclear how many voters the anti-EU U.K. Independence Party, led by Nigel Farage, will be able to draw away from the mainstream parties on polling day, and how many seats Cameron's coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, will be able to retain next year following a collapse in their support since joining the government.

If re-elected, Cameron has pledged to renegotiate Britain's EU membership terms and put them to a referendum by the end of 2017. He'll come under increased pressure from rank-and-file Conservative lawmakers to deliver on that pledge should UKIP gain its first ever elected member of Parliament in a special election on Oct. 9. Douglas Carswell, a prominent euro-skeptic Tory who defected to UKIP last month, is running for re-election in Clacton for his new party.