Scottish National Party ousts Labour in political upset
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A small political earthquake took place in the backwaters of the United Kingdom on May 5. While England was mesmerized by the impact of local elections on the fortunes of the Liberal Democratic Party, Scotland voted overwhelmingly in its parliamentary election for a Party whose core belief is Scottish independence.
The scale of the SNP victory was staggering. In a country that has been a bastion of the British Labour Party for decades, huge swathes of Labour red were wiped from the political map – when the SNP won Clydebank, it was the first time the town had been represented by a non-Labour politician for 93 years.
This was the victory that was intended to be impossible. The electoral system – a mixture of traditional "first past the post" and modern proportional representation – was established by the UK Labour Government in 1999, and was intended to ensure that no Party other than Labour could ever win an absolute majority in the Scottish Parliament.
The reasons for the result were manifold. The Scottish strategies of the London-based Conservative, LibDem, and Labour Parties are forever beholden to their Westminster bosses. Their poor, negative campaigns offered little to the Scottish electorate, in contrast to an SNP message that was relentlessly upbeat and aspirational.
The Labour Party leader, Iain Gray, was a pale and insipid character in contrast to the SNP's ebullient incumbent, Alex Salmond. One defining moment of the campaign was an incident in which the would-be First Minister of Scotland and his media manipulators fled in apparent terror from a tiny group of middle-aged protestors who tried to confront him on the subject of cuts to public services, seeking refuge in a Subway sandwich shop. This abject performance must have turned many supporters away from the Party in sheer embarrassment.
Following the elections, media forums were engulfed by an avalanche of denunciations of the Scots from English who believe they have been bailing out the fragile Scottish economy for decades. A particular target of abuse were two of Britain's biggest banks – the Royal Bank of Scotland and Halifax Bank of Scotland – which both required substantial public support following the economic crash. Commenters seemed quick to forget the billions of pounds paid into the Westminster coffers by these "Scottish" companies during the financial boom years.
But it is the wider impact of the SNP victory that is of true import. The SNP is committed to Scottish independence, and an independent Scotland would have significant consequences, both economic and political.
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