As the dust settles from Thursday’s Scottish Parliament elections, Ryan Curran looks at how Scottish politics is no longer simply a matter of left vs right, but rather one of nationalism vs unionism.

The SNP

Last Thursday, voters across Scotland took to the polls to vote in the fifth Scottish parliamentary election. 129 MSPs were at stake and it was the first time voters had taken to the polls to choose the Scottish government since 2011. Here, we’ll take a look at how each of the main parties fared after Thursday’s vote.

In 2011, the Scottish National Party (SNP), then led by Alex Salmond, secured an unexpected majority government after winning 69 seats in an electoral system (the Additional Member System (AMS)) designed specifically to prevent such a scenario. In the lead up to this year’s election, a similar result was expected as the party continued to show dominance in the opinion polls. However, the party fell two seats short of an overall majority on Thursday after winning 63 seats, with Nicola Sturgeon outlining her plans to run a minority government, ruling out a formal coalition with the likes of the Scottish Greens.

The SNP performed better in constituency seats compared to 2011, however a loss of 12 regional seats meant the party lost six seats overall, and therefore lost their majority. Nonetheless, the result is still historic as the SNP enter parliament governing for a third time, the first of any party in Holyrood, while Nicola Sturgeon is safely elected First Minister.

However, the chances of a second independence referendum in the near future look slimmer now that the pro-independence SNP has failed to secure an overall majority in parliament. And already, the Tories have begun calling on Nicola Sturgeon to rule out a second referendum in this parliament, claiming she has no mandate to call for one.

Scottish Conservatives

While Labour slipped into third place, the Scottish Conservatives’ strong unionist message and relatively popular leader, Ruth Davidson, helped the party replace Labour as the SNP’s main opposition. From day one of the campaign, the Scottish Tories set out to attack Labour, dubbing their campaign slogan, “Ruth Davidson for a strong opposition” and portraying Kezia Dugdale as a weak leader. It seems this strategy was remarkably successful, as the party secured 31 seats, up from 15 in 2011.

This election marks the party’s best result since the formation of the Scottish Parliament and breaks down the barrier that has prevented the Scottish Tories from achieving success in Scotland for so long.

In one of the biggest surprises of the night, Ruth Davidson gained Edinburgh Central from the SNP by a slim margin, while the Tories also made unexpected constituency gains in West Aberdeenshire and Eastwood.

Scottish Labour

Scottish Labour suffered a drubbing on Thursday as the party lost a total of 13 seats nationwide. They had hoped to continue as the main opposition to the SNP in parliament but constituency loss after constituency loss meant the party had to settle for third place, taking 24 seats.

The party’s disappointing result comes after last year’s general election in which Scottish Labour lost a total of 40 seats, with only one MP, Ian Murray, remaining after the votes were counted.

Moreover, Kezia Dugdale failed to secure a constituency seat after the SNP held Edinburgh Eastern; however, she managed to pick up a seat through the list vote process which also saved other senior party figures in the party such as Deputy Leader Alex Rowley and former leader Johann Lamont.

The results tell us Scottish Labour continues to be a toxic brand for many in Scotland, a situation which seems to have taken hold since the 2014 independence referendum, in which the party campaigned with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to remain within the United Kingdom. Increasingly, the divide in Scottish politics is becoming unionist and nationalist, rather than left and right, as voters continue to base their votes on each party’s attitude to Scottish independence, and it appears that Labour is failing to convince voters that they are the party of the union.

Scottish Greens

The Scottish Greens were hoping for a decent night from the offset, and, despite disappointment at not picking up two list MSPs in the Glasgow region, the party still managed to secure six seats, up from two in 2011. Patrick Harvie, co-convener of the Scottish Greens, also performed well in the Glasgow constituency of Kelvin where he outperformed Labour and finished in second place.

Moreover, a strong performance in the West of Scotland region saw the party’s Ross Greer elected to Holyrood, becoming the Scottish Parliament’s youngest ever MSP at 22-years-old, after topping the Green list in the region.

Scottish Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats had a better night than expected and won five seats overall, meaning the number of seats the party holds remains unchanged from 2011. Willie Rennie, the party’s leader, surprised everyone after winning the North East Fife constituency from the SNP, while a strong and unexpected performance in Edinburgh West also saw the SNP lose their seat to the Lib Dems.

Thursday’s result will be welcome news for the Scottish Liberal Democrats who were worried about further losses coming off the back of last year’s horrendous general election result, which saw the party lose ten MPs, leaving only one remaining.

Ukip

Despite making gains in the Welsh Assembly and local elections in England, Ukip failed to secure any seats in Scotland, leaving fans of controversial party leader David Coburn thoroughly disappointed. Ukip had been polling miserably in Scotland throughout the election and David Coburn’s only appearance during the first televised debate did little to persuade Scots their vote should go to Ukip. It seems Scotland’s more favourable view towards the EU played out in the election with no Eurosceptic party’s making any gains.

Going into this election, it seemed the SNP would ease to a majority, Labour and the Tories would be level pegging and the Liberal Democrats would continue their slide into political irrelevance. Instead, Holyrood’s fifth election threw up some surprises: the SNP fell just short of a majority; the Tories comfortably became the main opposition party; Scottish Labour slipped into third place; and the Lib Dems managed to fend off further losses. What may have been a relatively dull and predictable set of results at first rapidly turned into an intriguing and ground-breaking election.

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