Scottish Referendum: A majority of voters born in Scotland said yes to independence

But nearly three-quarters of people from elsewhere in Britain voted no. The biggest study yet of how Scotland made its historic decision on September 18, 2014 has found that the votes of people born outside Scotland were crucial to the result. While 52.7% of native-born Scots voted yes, a massive 72.1% of voters from England, Wales or Northern Ireland backed the Union. There were more than 420,000 Britons from elsewhere in Britain living in Scotland when the last census was taken. And if they cast their ballots in line with the findings of the Edinburgh University study, more than 300,000 of them would have voted no. That’s a significant number in a contest that ended with 2,001,926 votes for no and 1,617,989 for yes. Voters born outside Britain also rejected independence, with 57.1% voting no. Political scientist Professor Ailsa Henderson, who wrote the study, said that it showed the importance of “Britishness” among voters born elsewhere in Britain in deciding the result. She said: “Scottish-born people were more likely to vote yes and those born outside Scotland were more likely to vote no." Ailsa said that the trend she found was similar to those seen in other independence votes in places such as Quebec in Canada. The study, which recorded the attitudes of several thousand voters in a series of surveys, also confirmed that women and older people were more likely to vote no while men and the young were more in favor of yes. Researchers found that 56.6% of women voted no while 53.2% of men voted yes. The divide was even wider when it came to age. More than 62% of voters aged 16 to 19 backed independence. The yes side also had a majority among voters aged 20 to 24, 25 to 29 and 30-39, while voters aged 40 to 49 were split almost exactly down the middle. But 50 to 59-year-olds, 60 to 69-year-olds and voters aged 70 or older were all in the no camp, with the pro-Union majority getting bigger the older they were. Nearly two thirds of 70-something Scots voted no.