WHAT happens now? That’s what everyone is asking as the dust continues to settle on Scotland’s independence referendum.

After a campaign that was exhilarating and exhausting, fascinating yet fractious, all eyes are now focused on the future. So, what happens now?

Harmony? A smooth transition to more devolution? The long-awaited decentralisation of the UK state? Don’t bet on it.

The panic-stricken promise by Cameron, Clegg, Miliband and Brown saved the union - for now. But this rushed vow to bring lasting change has created a constitutional millstone that will hang round the necks of every major party for years.

Backbenchers will threaten revolt, the Welsh and Northern Irish will demand concessions, sections of the media will cry foul, and Parliament will tie itself in knots trying to unravel the West Lothian question.

While this is all going on though, those who sought independence will not be packing away the placards. If it is hard to predict what will happen next, it is perhaps easiest to say what won’t. And what certainly won’t happen is the collapse of the independence movement.

The unionists’ victory was clear, but not crushing. Two years ago, when support for independence was languishing in the low thirties, the Westminster leaders would have seen a 55-45 triumph as far too close for comfort. Independence was backed by 1.6 million voters and considered by hundreds of thousands of others.

Of course its proponents will respect last Thursday’s result. But they will not suddenly abandon their belief that independence is right. Nor should they. Those hailing last Thursday as a triumph of democracy cannot simultaneously hope all those political newbies remain engaged, but ask them if they wouldn’t mind please abandoning the issue that ignited their interest.

Put yourself in their position briefly. For every 20 people who voted, 11 said no and 9 said yes. If you were on a 20-person committee and passionately believed in a particular course of action, you would see an 11-9 defeat as agonisingly close. If and when the victors’ path became troublesome, you would lament the situation all the more. And if no voters began telling you they regretted their choice, as is highly conceivable if Westminster’s promises are broken, you would push for another vote.

Why would it not be thus? Why should the teenagers of 2024 be bound by the pensioners of 2014?

Already, alternative movements are on a collision course. Backbench Conservatives are reportedly pressing David Cameron to renege on his pledge to give Scotland more power, and grass-roots movements are emerging in Scotland, proudly calling themselves “the 45 per cent”, determined to press on.

As in any debate, there were entrenched hardcore supporters on either side, but the vast majority of voters were pragmatists.

The BBC, as is their wont, wheeled out innumerable experts throughout Thursday night, but the most telling contribution was from John Docherty, a maintenance engineer who was part of their voters’ panel in the studio – an ordinary Scot.

He told viewers: “I would love Scotland to be an independent country.” But asked on his ballot paper “Should Scotland be an independent country?”, he voted no. Why this paradox? Because, in his words, “I worry about my mortgage and how I am going to bring my family up – I worry about the simple things in life”.

John, I suspect, spoke for many others for whom the heart said yes but the head said, “what if....?”. He hinted at a truth, which has long rung true for many Scots and which has hindered the unionists’ argument from the start. That is, that for millions of Scots the union is now a purely pragmatic one, swaying the purse-strings but not the heart-strings.

Britain has clearly been a hugely beneficial coalition of nations for much of the past 307 years. Indeed I am among the many Scots who have moved to England, fallen in love with it, worked, married and set up home here. But for millions in Scotland, the union now feels strained and contrived; a marriage of convenience that is no longer convenient.

What happens next depends on who persuades those pragmatists. The yes movement should not berate those who voted no out of fear, but focus on assuaging those fears. As for Westminster, they must deliver genuine change quickly – or they will face demands for another referendum within years not decades, and they will lose.