Last night the separatist SNP stormed through Scotland like a logger, with the parliamentary oaks of other parties thudding into the ground every few minutes.
‘Woops, there goes another rubber tree plant.’
The once mighty Labour, foolish enough to think it owned Scotland, has one seat left at UK government level Ian Murray in Edinburgh South. Gone is is every whit of its Slasgow and Central belt heartland.
The Liberal Democrats have one seat left – the one they were always going to keep – Alistair Carmichael for the Liberal Democrats in Orkney and Shetland.
The heroic result of the night belonged to the Scottish Conservatives and thier successful new Leader, Ruth Davidon. Against all the odds, they kept their only Scottish Westminster seat, with David Mundell, the man who has been Scotland’s sole Conservative MP for ten years and his party holding on in Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale.
The rest is now SNP territory.
Nationwide, there will be a Conservative government at Westminster – possibly with an overall majority [as For Argyll predicted a couple of months ago]. This Conservative government is in power directly because the SNP felled Labour in Scotland and damaged it in England by its ‘tar baby’ grasping of that party to its breast.
The Liberal Democrats are unlikely to be recoverable as a party of any significance, They have no presence whatsoever on the Scottish mainland and they have only eight seats left in the entire.UK. Their only remaining MP who was in the Cabinet of the coalition government is theior party leader, Nick Clegg, who intends to stand down today.
Both of these parties will see their national leaders stand down today.
Labour – which actually performed well enough south of the border, could not survive the loss of 40 of its 41 Scottish seats. It lost its Scottish Leader, Jim Murphy; its shadow chancellor, Ed Balls; ; its shadow Foreign Secretary and election chief, Douglas Alexander; its shadow Scottish Secretary, Margaret Curran…
The Liberal Democrats have lost Treasury Secretary, Danny Alexander; former national party leader, Charles Kennedy; Business Secretary, Vince Cable; former Scottish Secretary, Michael Moore; Ministers Jo Swinson, David Laws, Lynne Featherstone…
Politically, and ironically, in this result, the SNP’s victory is pyrrhic since they will exercise no power at Westminster – only room to make a lot of noise and do a lot of stunts – all of which they will do.
We will have a situation analhysis in a couple of days – but for the moment, the political timetable ahead is now certain.
In 2016, the SNP manifesto will indubitably ask for – and get – a mandate for indy ref 2 – and a parliamentary chamber which will reflect a scenario much like the one elected last night.
in 2017 there will be the Scottish Local Authority elections – which the SNP will dominate; followed by the promised referendum on EU membership;
In 2018 there will be indyref 2 – and after that….
Big businesses will now start quietly moving out of Scotland; and the property market, which had been recovering is likely to stall again.
Everyone will be waiting and wondering when – not if – Scotland will separate from the Union; and the future of an ill-managed and ill-attended Union is itself uncertain.
