Salmond leads party to series of dramatic victories over Labour and Lib Dems, resulting in a majority in the Scottish parliament

This article is more than 9 years old

This article is more than 9 years old

The Scottish National party has won a majority in the Holyrood elections – a dramatic result that will allow its leader, Alex Salmond, to hold a historic referendum on independence for Scotland.

After a series of astonishing victories over Labour and a collapse in the Liberal Democrat vote, the SNP leader saw a landslide for his party take it beyond the 65-seat mark. Holyrood has 129 seats.

After a night of defeats for some of Labour's best-known figures and a near defeat for the Scottish Labour leader, Iain Gray, Salmond declared he would stage an independence referendum within five years.

Jubilant at the "historic" scale of the SNP's victories, he added that he would first demand much greater economic freedom for the Scottish parliament, including the right to set its own corporation tax and increase borrowing powers to £5bn. Then he would hold his referendum.

"Just as the Scottish people have restored trust in us, we must trust the people as well," he declared. "Which is why, in this term of the parliament, we will bring forward a referendum and trust the people on Scotland's own constitutional future."

David Cameron congratulated Salmond, but warned him that he would oppose any move towards independence for Scotland.

"I passionately believe in our United Kingdom, and of course I congratulate Alex Salmond on his emphatic win," Cameron said.

"I will do everything, obviously, as British prime minister, to work with the first minister of Scotland as I will always do to treat the Scottish people and the Scottish government with the respect they deserve.

"But on the issue of the United Kingdom, if they want to hold a referendum I will campaign to keep our United Kingdom together with every single fibre I have."

The scale and extent of the SNP's victories was unexpected. Labour endured its worst election in Scotland for 80 years, losing a dozen seats including nine MSPs who have been at Holyrood since the parliament was formed in 1999.

Gray phoned Salmond on Friday lunchtime to concede defeat and later told BBC Scotland he intended to stand down as the Scottish Labour leader in the autumn.

The unexpected losses of possible leadership contenders such as Andy Kerr and David Whitton has dramatically reduced Labour's options, officials said.

Many of Labour's new MSPs are untested novices. "This is quite a complicated situation, as you can appreciate," an official said. "We're having to make a radical reappraisal of the situation."

Gray said: "Labour has lost many talented representatives, and it seems very likely that Labour's new and returning MSPs will play their part in the democratic process in the Scottish parliament from opposition, but will do so with gusto."

No party had previously held an overall majority in the Scottish parliament. Salmond had expected to form a minority government, and had hoped to match the previous record of the 56 seats won by Labour under Donald Dewar in 1999.

Even on Friday morning, SNP officials had played down predictions that the party could win an overall majority of more than 65 seats because of the mixed electoral system used at Holyrood.

The additional member system for Scottish parliamentary elections is designed to ensure that minority parties – those that fail to win constituency seats – share the 56 list seats to ensure they are equally represented.

John Curtice, of the University of Strathclyde, predicted on Friday morning that the SNP was on course to win 68 seats, but a senior aide to Salmond said: "I would very much caution against that. Bear in mind this is a system designed specifically for that not to be the outcome."

Curtice said the SNP had managed to "appeal to a vast swath of Scotland" and holding a referendum – an election pledge Salmond was unable to deliver on in his first term as first minister – was now a reality.

"The referendum might now be a real issue for the future of Scottish politics, instead of being an area of theological dispute," he said.

Despite the scale of the SNP's victory, the party has still failed to push support for independence above 30%. Significant legal arguments about Holyrood's doubtful constitutional authority to hold a referendum also remain.

The former Respect MP George Galloway failed to win a seat at Holyrood after attracting only 3.5% of the regional list votes in Glasgow, confounding predictions that he would be elected.

As well as seeing a near-total collapse in the Lib Dem vote across Scotland, the Scottish party's leader, Tavish Scott – who had held the safest seat in Scotland – saw his majority in Shetland slashed. Scott's future as the leader is now in doubt.

The SNP was the only beneficiary of the Lib Dem collapse – the nationalists' vote rose across Scotland in proportion to the fall in Lib Dem support.

The traditional political map of Scotland has been transformed after the SNP won constituencies in Glasgow once regarded as impregnable Labour seats and, for the first time, won Holyrood seats in the capital, Edinburgh. The party defeated the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour, taking five out of six seats in the city.

As well as Kerr, losing Labour MSPs included the former ministers Frank McAveety and Tom McCabe and six prominent women MSPs.

The Westminster party leader, Ed Miliband, said Labour had to "reassess" its policies and position in Scotland.