When the turn-out is huge and the margin is clear, there can be no arguments.There need be no argument now. Scotland has said No to independence.

Whether Scotland yet knows what that choice implies is another matter. Whether those who run Britain have solved their Scottish problem for good or for a while remains, given that turn-out, to be seen.

At the time of writing 46% of the great majority of Scottish voters were content to break up the United Kingdom. They were outvoted by fellow Scots who chose an undefined offer of more powers for the Holyrood parliament. Two attitudes remain unreconciled.

There will be trouble, obviously enough, if the bigger Westminster parties do not, in the parlance, "deliver". The Scottish National Party will seize upon any failure. But the signs, for No voters, are not promising.

Which powers? When? And how - if it's even possible - can such concessions be reconciled with the growing sense in England that justice has not been done by its citizens?

In victory, the Better Together campaign might have made things difficult indeed for those who would keep the UK together.

How can you allow "English votes over English laws" while giving the Scots the luxury, as it is regarded, of the Barnett formula?

How can you keep the UK together without answering the West Lothian question? Winning a referendum solves nothing for believers in Britain.

It solves little for the Scots, either. Alistair Darling and Better Together have won a handsome victory but not, by any stretch, the decisive vote they wanted.

A big minority in Scotland have delivered a vote for dissent from the British way of doing things. They have rejected every blandishment. They are not happy Brits.

A lot of them are also unhappy former Scottish Labour voters. That party has thrown itself on to the wire to win this contest for the Union. The victory has been achieved, but the cost has been high indeed for the People's Party.

If nothing else - and it is a bit more than nothing - Labour have failed to hold tight to Glasgow. That, like a referendum on independence, was once unthinkable, but it no longer needs to be imagined.

We have not heard the last of it. Sooner or later, another referendum will be unavoidable.