Nicola Sturgeon’s personal disaster: heavy losses, big hitters like Alex Salmond and Angus Robertson taken out, and the second referendum is now in serious doubt, 2015, SNP get 56 seats, 2017, SNP get 35 seats, and many others hang by a thread, the SNP cult waking up to the fact that an idiot at Westminster will have consequences

Dear All

This blog post isn’t my election special I want to work on that for Monday but in the meantime, wasn’t the General Election result very interesting?

We have a hung parliament, Theresa May gambled and she lost, in Scotland, the Scottish Tories did very well, this was due to in part by them marshalling their forces to key target seats.

This election in Scotland was a different game to what was played on the other side of the border, mainly due to the SNP holding 56 seats in 2015. Within the space of two years, 56 MPs were reduced to 35 MPs. And among the SNP were some very high profile casualties such as Alex Salmond and Angus Robertson, the depute leader.

You may remember in a previous post I said that nominations for a new deputy leader would be opening up.

The defeat is a defeat for Nicola Sturgeon, she maybe sitting with 35 seats, it is the majority, she declared she is the winner but the underlying trend is there, and it is that people have rejected a second independence referendum. It was stupid to think that after 2014, there would be an appetite for this after continued failure in government.

As I said in another previous post, the only game in town is governance, perhaps Nicola Sturgeon will get that through her thick head. The independence issue had been a factor in the losses but there are other problems, the SNP cult had filled Westminster up with a load of idiots, and the idiots became a problem, not just there but also in Scotland.

To be blunt……. You’re paid to work!

The grievance strategy bombed not just in the House of Commons but also in the minds of people, they want to see dialogue, they want to see co-operation and they want to see real change for their benefit.

The SNP has failed to deliver this on all counts.

Nicola Sturgeon lost 21 seats in Thursday’s vote.

And it could have been much worse, if the other parties had got their act together and had the run in of six months at it.

The Scottish Parliament has since voted in favour of the SNP government’s demands for another referendum, but now that idea is toast; beside that being reserved to Westminster, it is also un-winnable.   

Sturgeon said:

“I’m going to reflect carefully on the result. I’m going to take some time to do that.  Like all politicians I’ve now gone 36 hours or more without sleep. I don’t think these are the conditions to rush to judgements or decisions. I will consider carefully the outcome, listen to what voters were saying. “Undoubtedly the issue of an independence referendum was a factor in this election result, but I think there were other factors in this election result as well. I will reflect on that and come to considered judgements.”

Sturgeon’s focus will also be on that the SNP are down from 50 per cent of the popular vote to 37 per cent. Although the SNP had a very successful go at destroying Labour in Scotland, their strategy was flawed, a by-product was people voting Conservative and them not being effective in government at Holyrood.

Deputy First Minister John Swinney said the loss of seats had been partly down to the constitutional issue.

He added:

“We will take time and care to reflect on the outcome of this result, but we have to acknowledge that the question of a second independence referendum was a significant motivator of votes against the SNP in this election and we have to be attentive to that point.”

The only game in town now is governance which means….. George Laird right again.

Tory leader Ruth Davidson:

“This was an election that was dominated by one issue: Nicola Sturgeon’s decision in March to demand a second referendum on independence. We led the opposition to that referendum. The Scottish people spoke. The SNP’s vote down 13 per cent. Nearly half a million votes gone between 2015 and today. Our vote up 13 per cent. The largest share of the vote for the Scottish Conservatives since 1979. “SNP MPs who lost their seats have paid the price or what was a massive political miscalculation on Nicola Sturgeon’s part.”

The SNP by default, sheer stupidity and lack of a work ethic changed the political map of Scotland thinking that they might take a hit of a few seats but that as the ‘new establishment’ they would be like Scottish Labour and have about 50 seats secure.

That as we have seen by other close results is an illusion!

People don’t want gimmicks, they want results, they don’t want stories, they want facts, and the in the cold light of day, these results show that some people although they scrapped into Parliament on a whisker are on a sticky wicket.

I would think that with the hung parliament, Tories and DUP, we will see no election take place before end of Brexit, after Brexit is concluded and depending on the numbers, Theresa May May might go again, but she needs breathing space. She has to get a good deal, she has to show improvement and she has to fix things for people so that life for those at the bottom is less difficult. That being said, some people think that the Tory/DUP coalition will only go six months, and there is talk by some of an October election, May needs to steady the ship.

The next General Election will be a corker, Jeremy Corbyn’s position is secure, but Labour has a load of problems internally to fix, but the direction of travel was pretty positive.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University