Alex Salmond, Scotland's outgoing independence leader, accused politicians in London of reneging on their promises to hand more power to Scots in a rare cross-party pact that he said played a crucial role in swinging the votes in favor of union in Thursday's vote.
His comments came after Prime Minister David Cameron stressed that plans to empower Scots should be linked to constitutional reform in England - a stance that fractured the fragile political consensus and drew attacks from across the spectrum.
Just days earlier, Cameron and his political rivals had joined together in a vow to quickly pass laws to transfer key decision-making powers from London to Scotland's capital, Edinburgh. All three party leaders signed off on the pledge, which promised Scots new powers to decide on their tax, budget and welfare policies.
Since then, Cameron said those changes must be made "in tandem" with reform in the House of Commons to bar Scottish lawmakers from having a say on bills that only apply to England and Wales - a longstanding grievance that has come to the fore amid the debate.
He also said it won't be fair to devolve powers to Scotland without considering similar changes in the rest of the kingdom - England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
"Millions of people in the rest of the U.K. have been listening to these debates, watching this campaign and rightly asking: `What will change for us? Why can't we have the same powers and the same rights as those in Scotland?'" Cameron wrote in the Mail on Sunday newspaper.
Critics say that throwing all those questions into one basket dilutes the three leaders' joint pledge, and will inevitably delay the timetable of the promised return of powers to Scotland.
