LONDON (AFP) – The ruling Scottish National Party was on its way to winning the fourth consecutive parliamentary election on Saturday and would be very close to a majority that would allow it to pay for another UK referendum on independence.
With 60 constituencies counted, the SNP won 51 of the 129 seats and was clearly on track to expand its dominance over Scottish politics. However, given the electoral system in Scotland, which also allocates some seats through some form of proportional representation, a party may have less than the 65 seats it would need in the Edinburgh Parliament to win a majority.
In Wales, the final vote showed that the Labor Party was performing better than expected in the parliamentary elections as it extended its 22 years in control of the Welsh government.
Voting continues after the English municipal elections, which were already a particular success for the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party. But the Scottish election could have the biggest impact on Britain, leading to another referendum on Scotland’s future in the UK.
If the SNP gains a majority, its leader, Prime Minister Nicolas Sturden, will say he has a mandate to call another referendum. If the party fails, the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, who has the most power to authorize the referendum, may argue that she did not. He wrote in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday that another referendum “in the current context” would be “irresponsible and reckless” when Britain emerges from the coronavirus crisis.
Speaking after taking a seat in Glasgow on Friday, Sturden said her immediate priority would be to fight the pandemic and “when the time comes to offer the country a better future.”
Scotland has been part of the United Kingdom since 1707, and the issue of Scottish independence seemed resolved when Scottish voters in the 2014 referendum refused to secede by 55-45%. But the UK’s 2016 decision to leave the European Union went against the wishes of most Scots – a 62% vote in favor of staying in the bloc, while a majority of voters in England and Wales wanted to leave. This gave the Scottish state new legs.
Scotland’s first deputy minister, John Swine, said the party would still have the right to call elections if it failed, but enough other pro-independence members, such as members of the Scottish Green Party, were being elected.
He told the BBC: “I am sure that will be the case.”
So far, the English elections for Johnson Conservatives have been largely positive, especially their victory in the special elections in the post-industrial city of Hartlepool for a parliamentary seat held by the main opposition Labor party since 1974. In some parts of England, they have been Labor fortresses for decades. It was not a century. Many of these places, which have changed from red to blue, voted very much in 2016 for Brexit. The rapid spread of coronavirus vaccines appears to have given conservatives an incentive.
On so-called Super Thursday, some 50 million voters were able to vote in dozens of elections, some of which were postponed for a year due to an epidemic that killed the UK with the highest number of Corona virus deaths. In Europe.
For Labor and its new leader, Keir Starmer, Hartlepool’s result was very disappointing and led to another soul-seeking in the party, which in 2019 suffered the worst election performance since 1935.
Starmer said he took full responsibility for the party’s defeat in Hartlepool, adding that he would soon develop a strategy to reconnect with his traditional constituencies. He did not provide any other information.
Although the Labor Party is losing ground in traditional fortresses, its support has remained in many other parts of England, such as the big cities. The party won a number of municipal elections, including in Liverpool. London Mayor Sadik Khan and Manchester Mayor Andy Burnem were expected to win the second term.
The Labor Party also performed particularly well in Wales, maintaining its grip on power after winning half of the seats in the Welsh Parliament, outpacing the majority by just one. Mark Drakeford, who will remain the first minister, said the party would be “radical” and “ambitious” in government.
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