The Scottish Conservatives won a record 31 seats, up from 15 in 2011, and are now Holyrood’s second biggest party.
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The party’s telegenic leader, Ruth Davidson, campaigned strongly against a second referendum on leaving the United Kingdom and in support of the union with England, and was rewarded with her party’s best showing in Scottish devolved elections.
Kezia Dugdale has written to Scottish Labour members saying they “must continue to fight for what we believe in” after she vowed to keep leading the party despite its “heartbreaking” result in the Holyrood election.
We became the first party in the devolution era to poll more than one milion votes in constituencies across the country.
While the SNP will comfortably form a government with 63 seats-down from 69 in 2011-they have narrowly missed out on the overall majority predicted by pollsters.
Ms Sturgeon said: “The Scottish Parliament, of course, has a majority of MSPs who support independence”.
The failure to win a firm majority means Sturgeon will have to seek votes outside her own party to enact its legislative program. The week after that I hope to be re-elected in the parliament as first minister. Davidson hailed an “incredible result” after she unexpectedly took Edinburgh Central from the SNP by just 610 votes. There’s no doubt that our defeat for the Labour Party is painful but it is not the end of our campaign.
While some within Labour will be relieved the losses were not as great as had been feared, there will be those who argue the party should be making gains.
And he also warned that after a widely acclaimed campaign by leader Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservatives will “hold Ms Sturgeon’s toes to the fire” to ensure she uses the raft of new tax and welfare powers instead of trying to push for another independence referendum. “That’s what people want”.
Early indications it could be a bad night for Ms Dugdale’s Labour were apparent from the second seat to be declared.
“I think Jackson Carlaw is wrong, although we will see, I don’t think he will find that there is a majority in the Scottish Parliament in the way he says there is but we will see how that develops”. Her deputy Alex Rowley lost the Cowdenbeath seat he won in a by-election, and was returned to Holyrood via the Mid Scotland and Fife list.
It was only at around 5.30am when Dugdale was announced as the victor of a seat via the Lothian regional list – the proportional system which runs alongside the first past the post constituency vote – when she tackled the hard subject of what had taken place. As things have transpired, Labour had a awful night and now finds itself as Scotland’s third party. At least a third of the Labour’s core support backed independence in 2014 and have switched en masse to the SNP.
In an election campaign dominated by the question of independence, the surprise success on the night was the Scottish Conservatives.
“The Labour party is now third in Scotland for the first time since 1910 and it has failed to make a serious impression in southern England”.
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The Scottish Greens finished fourth after winning six seats – one ahead of the Liberal Democrats.
