The SNP's landslide victory in the Scottish parliamentary elections will have ramifications that go far beyond Scotland's borders
To understand the sheer scale of the conquest, you need look at the political map. Before May 6, the Highlands and much of the northeast of Scotland was Liberal Democrat orange, Glasgow and the west was solid red, and Edinburgh and the east was red and blue. Now the map is almost uniformly Scottish National Party yellow, from Cape Wrath to Clydeside, with only a few bits of red in the west, and a touch of Tory blue in the deep south.
The SNP can claim, after this result, to be the first political party in modern history to represent all corners of Scotland, and all classes. The Scottish system of proportional representation was supposed to prevent any party gaining an absolute majority in the Holyrood Parliament, but the SNP has blown all that theory by winning 69 seats out of 129. The nationalist leader, Alex Salmond, can now do whatever he wants in this unicameral legislature.
The Scottish political classes are in a state of shock. As MSPs assembled in Parliament to swear their oath of allegiance, political journalists were bewildered by all the new faces. It’s as if all the prominent non-nationalist figures in Scottish politics had disappeared in a Waco-style collective suicide. No one knows who to speak to anymore. All the people who mattered are gone.
All three opposition leaders – Labour’s Iain Gray, the Liberal Democrats’ Tavish Scott and the Scottish Conservatives’ Annabel Goldie – have resigned in humiliation. This is unfortunate because none of the opposition parties has any obvious alternative leaders. Almost all of the previous Labour front bench have lost their seats and are out of Parliament. Goldie had what most commentators saw as a rather good campaign, although the Tories lost votes and seats, and has anointed no successor. The LibDems have only five MSPs left to choose from of the 16 they had before and none has Scott’s experience or public profile.
What will Salmond do with all this power? The opposition parties hoped that he might throw them a crumb of comfort by letting the elected presiding officer – equivalent to the speaker – come from outside the SNP. But, no, the first act of the new Parliament was to install the SNP’s Tricia Marwick as presiding officer.
Holyrood does most of its serious work in the committees – but these will now all have an SNP majority and will likely have an SNP chair. There will be no hectic late-night negotiations over the annual Scottish Budget, because the finance secretary, John Swinney, won’t need any opposition votes.
And, of course, there will be a referendum on independence. The Bill for the ballot failed in the last Parliament because the unionist parties refused to vote for it. Now it is a foregone conclusion, and Salmond has said it will take place late in the Parliament, around 2014. Lord Forsyth, the former Tory Scottish Secretary, has called on Westminster to shoot the SNP fox by staging an early snap referendum. But this ignores political reality. A Bill for an election has to be passed by the Scottish Parliament, and Salmond has an absolute majority now. The referendum will only happen when the SNP leader thinks he is most likely to win it. Right now, only a third of Scots favour independence.
In the meantime, Salmond will concentrate his attention on beefing up the Scotland Bill, currently going through the two Parliaments. This already gives Scotland a share of income tax, borrowing powers and various other fiscal adjustments. Salmond wants all income tax raised in Scotland, control of the Crown Estates, corporation tax and other concessions. He may well get them, too, because Westminster cannot pass the Bill without a vote in Holyrood. So, it’s not only the map that will change. Relations between Scotland and England will never be the same again.
Iain Macwhirter is political commentator on the Sunday Herald
