The Scottish National Party (SNP) has suffered heavy losses in the general election, losing 38 seats with only one left to be declared, following a recount. Labour made considerable gains across the central part of Scotland, with the majority of their wins being achieved with vote share swings of around 20% from the SNP. The Scottish Conservatives, led by Douglas Ross, won just five seats, down one from 2019. Ross was unable to make a controversial bid for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East.
John Swinney, the SNP’s Chief Minister, described the election result as “damaging,” while acknowledging his party would need to undergo “soul-searching” following its poor performance. Swinney conceded that the independence agenda was not given the urgency it deserved, which was one of the reasons behind the losses that ranks among the worst since 2010.
Labour celebrated victories across Scotland, especially in the central region, taking all six seats in Glasgow from the SNP. Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, expressed hope that after 14 years of Conservative “chaos and failure,” Scotland had finally turned a page. Joanna Cherry, an SNP member, lost her Edinburgh South West seat to Labour, along with Tommy Sheppard in Edinburgh East and Musselburgh.
Scottish Labour member Torcuil Crichton won Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Western Isles) for Labour, while the party gained in Alloa and Grangemouth, Stirling and Strathallan, as well as in three Fife constituencies. The SNP’s Kirsten Oswald, the Deputy Westminster leader, lost her seat in East Renfrewshire to Blair McDougall of Labour, the former strategist of the Better Together campaign during the Scottish Independence Referendum of 2014.
The SNP won just nine out of the 57 seats in Scotland they were defending. A recount in Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire, which was an SNP seat during the previous boundaries, was scheduled for Saturday because of a statistical issue, namely a discrepancy between the verified votes and the counted votes, which prevented the returning officer from declaring a result at this stage.
Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, called it a “historically bad night” for his party, which managed to secure only five seats, falling behind Reform UK in several Scottish constituencies, while Ruth Davidson, the former Scottish Conservative leader, said it was a “massacre” for her party. The Conservative Party has thus far held onto five of its seats in Scotland. The Scottish Liberal Democrats have so far returned four members of parliament. Former party leader, Jo Swinson, announced that the Liberal Democrats are set to become a “substantial force again.”
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More