Victorious SNP falls short of majority in Scottish Parliament election

Scotland is set for a nationalist minority government after the Scottish National Party recorded a "historic" third successive victory in elections to the devolved Edinburgh parliament.

On a night of upsets across Scotland, the SNP was the biggest winner but lost its outright majority in the Holyrood parliament. Labour, long Scotland’s party of government, was pushed into third place by a resurgent Conservative Party.

"We have tonight made history," SNP leader and Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon declared as the nationalists won all nine Glasgow constituencies in the early hours of Friday morning. "If you had told me when I was a teenager, starting out in politics, that one day the SNP would win every constituency in the city of Glasgow, not just in one election but in two elections, I would scarcely have been able to believe it."

But despite topping one million votes for the first time, the SNP ended the night on 63 seats, just shy of an absolute majority, due to the vagaries of the devolved electoral system. The SNP’s dominance was not reflected in the proportional regional system where the party lost 12 of its 16 list seats despite picking up more than 40 per cent of the vote.

In an election campaign dominated by the question of independence, the surprise success on the night was the Scottish Conservatives.

The party's telegenic leader, Ruth Davidson, campaigned strongly against a second referendum on leaving the UK and in support of the union with England, and was rewarded with her party's best showing in Scottish devolved elections.

The Conservatives have endured a torrid three decades in Scotland, with Margaret Thatcher often held responsible for decimating industries across the country. The party has been seen as toxic with Scottish voters. In May 2015, it won just a single Westminster seat north of the border.

But on Thursday night the Scottish Conservatives took 31 of the 129 seats on offer, almost doubling their representation in the Edinburgh parliament. Ms Davidson hailed an “incredible result” after she unexpectedly took Edinburgh Central from the SNP by just 610 votes.

The big loser on the night was undoubtedly Scottish Labour. Despite winning several significant constituency battles, the party’s poor performance left it with 22 seats, 13 down on its result in 2011.

“This election was always going to be tough for the Scottish Labour Party, just a year after a painful general election defeat,” said Kezia Dugdale, who was elected leader last summer.

Labour tacked to the left in an effort to win back voters lost to the SNP but is still struggling to come to terms with the reality of Scottish politics in the wake of the 2014 independence referendum.

Faultline

While 55 per cent of Scots voted to remain part of the UK, independence remains the defining faultline of Scottish politics. On Thursday, Labour’s vote collapsed, particularly in its former industrial heartlands in Glasgow and the west of Scotland, which voted yes in 2014, while the Conservatives won pro-union votes from the party elsewhere in the country.

In the wake of this defeat, calls have intensified for a debate within Scottish Labour about Scotland's constitutional position. Deputy leader Alex Rowley said that the party needed to produce "a clear vision for the future of Scotland" and to look again at the issue of home rule for Scotland within a federal UK.

Another independence referendum is unlikely in the short term, but the SNP will return to power after nine years in government. The party is most likely to govern as a minority administration, as it did successfully between 2007 and 2011.

Ms Sturgeon said she had won “a clear and unequivocal mandate” as first minister, and that she would not seek formal alliances with other parties.

“However, the government I lead will be an inclusive government,” Ms Sturgeon said. “It will be firm on our determination to deliver on the commitments we made to the Scottish people, but it will also reach out to others across the parliament to find common ground and build consensus.”

As in 2007, the nationalists are likely to rely on the support of the Scottish Greens. The pro-independence Greens had a good night, tripling their representation in parliament to six seats and pushing the Liberal Democrats, once a major force in Scottish politics, into fifth place.

Ukip, which had hoped to poll well in Scotland, as it has done in England and Wales, registered just 2 per cent and won no seats.