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SNP still has a majority in Scotland after losing 21 seats; huge Tory upsurge

Friday, June 9th 2017 - 08:20 UTC
Full article 18 comments
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said that the SNP had won the election in Scotland, with the party achieving its second best performance ever in a Westminster election. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said that the SNP had won the election in Scotland, with the party achieving its second best performance ever in a Westminster election.

The Scottish National Party´s, SNP, former leader Alex Salmond has lost his Gordon seat amid a Scottish Conservative surge. The Tories also defeated the SNP's deputy leader Angus Robertson as they won seats across the country. The SNP finished on 35 seats - a majority of the 59 Scottish constituencies but a drop of 21 from the 56 they won in 2015.

 The Conservatives won 13 seats in Scotland, the party's best performance in the country since 1983.

Labour won seven seats and the Liberal Democrats four. The three pro-UK parties had won just one seat each the last time around. The Tories saw big increases in their vote across the country, with the SNP vote dropping sharply.

The final Scottish seat to declare was Fife North East, where there were three recounts before Stephen Gethins of the SNP was declared the winner after finishing just two votes ahead of the Lib Dem candidate.

With all 59 seats declared, the SNP won 36.9% of the votes, a drop of 13.1 percentage points since 2015. The Scottish Tories doubled their share of the vote to 28.6%, with Labour up by 2.8 points at 27.1% and the Lib Dems down slightly to 6.8%.

But the picture is less positive for the Conservatives across the UK, with the party losing its majority at Westminster and the prime minister facing calls for her resignation.

Mr Salmond, who was Scotland's first minister between 2007 and 2014, had won a majority of 8,687 at the last election in 2015. But the Conservatives saw their share of the vote increase by 29% in the constituency as Colin Clark defeated the former first minister by 2,607 votes.

Despite his defeat, Mr Salmond insisted that people have “not seen the last of my bonnets and me”. He added: “The SNP have lost many fine parliamentarians this evening and that's a grievous blow to the SNP.

”But overall the result in Scotland shows the SNP will have won a majority of the seats in this country and the majority of the vote, something which I suspect the prime minister would like to be able to claim in the early hours of this morning but is not able to do so.“

Earlier, Douglas Ross of the Tories overturned a majority of 9,065 to defeat Mr Robertson - who had been the SNP's leader at Westminster - by 4,200 votes in Moray.

Speaking as she arrived at the Glasgow count, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said that the SNP had won the election in Scotland, with the party achieving its second best performance ever in a Westminster election.

Asked about the impact of the lost SNP seats on her desire to hold a second independence referendum, Ms Sturgeon said: ”Like most politicians I have not had any sleep and I am not going to take any rash decisions.

Categories: Politics, International.

Top Comments

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  • DemonTree

    Half a million, and I don't know whether they made a difference to the outcome, but it doesn't matter. Whoever voted yesterday will also have a vote in another referendum. 60% of the electorate voted for pro-unionist parties, and that has got to make the SNP think twice. They won't want to hold another referendum unless/until they can win it.

    And something for you to bear in mind: if the SNP hadn't lost those 12 seats to the Tories, Corbyn could be about to become PM now instead of May staying on with help from the scandal-hit DUP.

    Jun 09th, 2017 - 02:25 pm +3
  • Jo Bloggs

    The SNP still has power for now but quite clearly more Scots than they'd hoped still wish to remain part of the United Kingdom.

    Jun 09th, 2017 - 09:07 am +2
  • Voice

    EscoSesDoidao

    There is no coming Inderef2 now...it is dead...
    For Scotland it was just as I predicted that the SNP would lose a lot of seats to the Tories..
    Including your seat I believe...

    Jun 09th, 2017 - 10:18 am +2
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