The people have spoken...

On Thursday's Scotland silent majority finally made its voice heard as the people of Scotland rejected the break up of Britain by a margin greater than most commentators had predicted.

Much has been made of the success of both campaigns in engaging with people who have not been involved in politics before. While this is to be welcomed we should not sweep under the carpet the unsavoury elements of the campaign that have shamed our nation.

In my 31 years involved in politics I have never known a more acrimonious or divisive campaign.

Overt sectarianism has entered our politics for the first time in my political life as demonstrated all too clearly on the streets of Glasgow on Friday night. The genie is out of the bottle and it will be difficult to put him back in.

Of course this sectarianism has not been confined to Glasgow. I have experienced it on the streets of Inverclyde and on social media.

Those who should know better have exploited the religious divisions within our community for their own narrow nationalist ends. They have sought to align the natural sympathy of sections of the local Irish Catholic community for a United Ireland with their campaign to break up Britain. By voting No you are voting with the Orange Order we were told.

The divisions however run deeper than just religion.

They have set neighbour against neighbour, work colleague against work colleague, friend against friend and family member against family member.

We have seen a break down in respect for the views of others. No voters were queueing up at Boglestone Community Centre on Thursday to tell me how intimated they had felt during the course of the campaign.

I and my colleagues experienced this at first hand.

Complete strangers saw nothing wrong with walking up to us in the street and calling us traitors to our country or Tory supporting scum.

Young and not so young men saw nothing wrong with driving past us tooting their horns and shouting obscenities.

A postman, taxi driver and social care worker out with a vulnerable client saw nothing wrong with taking time off from their duties to let us know exactly what they thought of us.

On social media we were subjected to constant abuse and lies, culminating with false stories circulating on Thursday that the MP had been thrown out of a polling station for being abusive to voters and I had been arrested for various misdemeanours. These lies are continuing to be spread on social media with no concern for the reputations of those affected.

And of course we are now facing threats of retribution against the Labour Party because we supported the No campaign.

I was warned just after the count on Friday morning by a nationalist that I was one of the two most hated men in Inverclyde politics (Iain McKenzie being the other) and that my political career is over.

While this could in part be put down to the heat of the moment a look at social media over the past couple of days suggests that the threat is very real indeed.

A whole generation seem to have taken leave of their senses.

While the people have spoken, the divisions of this campaign could take a very long time to heal.