(May 9): Scotland’s push for another independence referendum could be back in play after nationalists emerged to dominate the country’s devolved Parliament following an election that saw a collapse in support for Britain’s two traditional parties of power.
The Scottish National Party (SNP) won a fifth straight term running the semi-autonomous government in Edinburgh on Friday but failed to get a majority in the legislature. But record support for the Greens, who also want Scotland to cede from the rest of the UK, means together the two parties have more than half of the 129 seats.
“We know independence is urgently needed and we have a democratic mandate to pursue that cause,” Ross Greer, a co-leader of the Scottish Greens, told BBC Scotland. “The people of this country should get the opportunity to decide at a referendum whether Scotland should be an independent nation again and be able to join the European Union.”
Whatever happens next, the result puts more pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer after his governing Labour Party suffered significant losses following a series of policy U-turns, scandals and missteps. The UK premier is now faced with nationalist governments across the country’s devolved nations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
“More and more people are looking towards a future beyond the constraints of the Union,” Northern Ireland’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill, an Irish nationalist from the Sinn Fein party, posted in a video on her X account. Their “growing demand for independence cannot be ignored”, she said.
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Populist drive
Labour lost control of Wales for the first time in a century to the pro-independence Plaid Cymru, while in England it shed hundreds of local council seats to Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK.
In Scotland, Reform won its first parliamentary seats, also as voters deserted the Conservative Party, which governed the UK in Westminster for 14 years before being ousted by Labour. The leader of the Scottish Conservatives blamed Reform for splitting the anti-independence vote and handing gains to the SNP. Reform and Labour were competing to become the biggest opposition group.
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SNP leader John Swinney, who also serves as the leader of the Scottish government, previously said that he would push for another vote on Scottish autonomy should his party win an outright majority on its own. As the results trickled in and it became clear his party would finish well short of the threshold, he prevaricated on whether he’ll take the case to Westminster.
“The SNP will do what they can to advance the cause of independence because it’s in their DNA,” said Nicola McEwen, a public policy professor at the University of Glasgow. She said she expects “a symbolic vote to demonstrate that there is a pro-independence majority in the early days of the new government”.
Victory for the SNP means the party is set to extend its time in power in Scotland to more than two decades. It also marks a notable reversal of fortunes over the past two years.
Police probe
Swinney took over the SNP leadership in 2024 at the height of a reputational crisis following turmoil at the top of the party and a police investigation into its finances. The party then endured a collapse in the number of seats it won at the UK general election as Labour stormed to power.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, who has called for Starmer’s resignation, said that the vote in Scotland reflected the rest of the UK. “It became about a national mood, and a national dissatisfaction,” he said.
It wasn’t all good news for the SNP, though. It’s forming a minority government again, and is beholden to the support of the Greens or other parties to push through legislation. The pro-independence Greens won a marginal seat in Edinburgh, ousting SNP grandee Angus Robertson, and took the district previously held by former leader Nicola Sturgeon in Glasgow.
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Indeed, Sturgeon was the figurehead of the independence movement for years, demanding a fresh vote after the UK decided to leave the EU, something Scotland opposed. She galvanised support for ending the three-centuries-old union with England and Wales, though ultimately failed in her quest to secure another referendum as successive Conservative prime ministers in London refused to grant one.
It is up to Swinney to decide what to do next. Starmer, too, is opposed to another Scottish plebiscite. Scotland voted 55% to 45% to stay in the union in the 2014 referendum, which came about after the SNP secured a majority in 2011 and the UK government acquiesced to one.
With recent polls showing support for a breakaway has since increased, a fresh vote remains unlikely for now. But there will be fresh impetus.
Uploaded by Tham Yek Lee
