Ms Sturgeon said: “I was the deputy first minister in a minority government from 2007 to 2011”.
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Nicola Sturgeon will congratulate her new group of MSPs after the SNP secured an historic third term in power in Scotland.
After the boundary changes and Thursday’s election, the Conservatives ended up with 11 fewer seats in Elmbridge, with their total of 22 councillors being insufficient for them to have an outright majority over seven Liberal Democrats and 19 residents association members who were elected councillors. In that parliament we were genuinely a minority government.
Speaking at the Kelpies, the SNP leader said: “The government I lead will be open and it will be inclusive”.
While the SNP lost its overall majority in the Scottish Parliament – two seats short of a majority in the 129-seat parliament – Ms Sturgeon has already ruled out forming a coalition.
“I’ll reach out and seek areas of common ground, but I’m not going to be thwarted in my determination to govern in the interests of the country as a whole”.
“We polled more votes than Labour and the Conservatives combined in this election, so we have a very clear and unequivocal mandate to implement the policies that we set out in our manifesto and I intend to do that, albeit I will do that in as inclusive a way as I can”.
Earlier on Saturday, Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson – whose party will be the official opposition in the next Scottish Parliament – said the SNP needed to be held “in check”.
“There is an independence-supporting majority in the Scottish Parliament if you take the SNPs and the Greens”.
However, the SNP’s potential allies in the Scottish Green party, with whom the SNP may have to cut deals to get its legislation through, did propose a mechanism for a second referendum.
He said there is a “natural majority” against named person and the Tories “want to stop it”.
“We should respect the will of the people at all times, and that applies not just to the SNP but to other parties as well”.
Elsewhere, the party lost Eastwood to the Conservatives and it failed to win a single constituency seat in Glasgow – which was once a Labour stronghold.
The T ories won a number of concessions from Alex Salmond’s minority administration and leader Ruth Davidson has pledged to “work constructively where required” but “provide challenge where they do not listen”.
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The U.K. Labour Party’s finance spokesman, John McDonnell, ruled out a bid to wrest the leadership from Jeremy Corbyn, days after Labour became the first opposition party in three decades to lose seats outside of a general election year. “Inside_the_Scottish_Labour_campaign__no_focus__no_money__no_hope/” class=”local_link” >Kezia Dugdale directly, praising her performance in the campaign and policies on taxation, public services and industry and insisting she had his overwhelming backing to remain in charge, although as leader, she had ultimate responsibility for the position Labour adopted on the constitution.
