A Scottish National Party (SNP) supporter holds a Scottish flag or ‘Saltire’ as SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon campaigns in Ayr, south west of Glasgow, in Scotland, on April 21, 2015. (Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images)
The following is a guest post from University of Sussex (Britain) political scientist Dan Hough.
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There is always a unique drama to an election night in Britain, but the events of Thursday, May 7 surprised even the most hardened of British election watchers (see here for a full breakdown of the results). Indeed, if Quentin Tarantino directed results’ nights, then they would probably look like this – ministerial blood everywhere and general carnage as the unexpected just keeps on happening.
The long and short of a dramatic night is that whilst David Cameron will be returning to 10 Downing Street as prime minister, this was an election that fundamentally changed the face of British politics – very possibly permanently. That’s the case for four reasons. First, Britain is now a country with effectively no national political parties. Everyone is now a regionalist in some form. Second, and perhaps most significantly, the success of the Scottish National Party (SNP) has put the very future of Britain on the line. Third, the Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems) have gone from being a party of government to a marginal force with a meagre eight members of Parliament (MPs). That is as close to wipeout as it gets in British politics. Finally, Labour’s performance was deeply underwhelming, and that despite the previous Conservative-led government pushing hard-hitting austerity politics. If Labour is going to win next time round, some serious soul-searching will be required.
(Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-uk-election/)
The above figure is a picture (created by Bloomberg Business) of the 650 British constituencies. The map has been skewed so that every one of them is the same size. The story is of three parties with very distinct strongholds. The blue in much of the south and center of England shows how the Conservatives dominate there. The Conservatives have been a predominantly English party since 1997, but now their brand appears to be positively toxic in the vast majority of Scotland and in significant (although not all) parts of Wales. They are in effect an English national party.
Labour (in red), on the other hand, has three strongholds; London, the north of England and much of South Wales. On the face of it, that might not sound too bad, but it is not the stuff of which majorities in Britain are made. This rump of around 230 constituencies leaves Labour a long way from an overall majority, and the next party leader (Ed Miliband, the much derided leader since 2010, has already resigned) has a real challenge to break back into the south of England and Scotland.
The real shock, however, came in Scotland, and this leads to the second main conclusion; Scotland is now ticking very differently to the rest of Britain, and this has clear medium- and long-term implications. The figure above shows the extent of SNP dominance in Scotland. The party won all but three of the 59 Scottish seats. That’s a jump from six seats in 2010 to 56 seats in 2015 on exactly 50 per cent of the vote. Labour, traditionally dominant in Scotland, polled 24.3 percent, whilst the Conservatives managed just 14.9 percent. The swing to the SNP swept more or less all competitors aside, and these included some pretty significant players; the Labour Party’s leader in Scotland, Jim Murphy, lost the seat of East Renfrewshire; the (Liberal Democrat) chief secretary to the treasury, Danny Alexander, lost the wonderfully named Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey seat by a wide margin to the SNP’s Drew Hendry and, most notably, the prospective foreign secretary (Secretary of State) and Labour Party campaign manager Douglas Alexander (no relation to Danny) lost most sensationally to Mhairi Black, a 20-year-old student, in Paisley and Renfrewshire South. The SNP, a party that wants Scotland out of Britain, conquered virtually all.
The loss of the high profile Danny Alexander was a blow to the Lib Dems, but it was by no means the end of the nightmare. Party leader Nick Clegg did hold his seat (Sheffield Hallam), but he quickly resigned as leader. The Lib Dems were effectively decapitated, losing party superstars, such Vince Cable (the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills), Ed Davey (the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change), Charles Kennedy (a former leader) and many of their previous strongholds in the Southwest of Britain. For the Lib Dems, it really could not have been much worse. That has implications not just for them, but for the center of British politics, which has now been hollowed out. Britain, a country that has traditionally prided itself on its pragmatism, seems to have turned its back on its liberal soul.
Finally, what of the future? On the one hand, the Conservatives will be feeling triumphant. They have, against more or less all odds, won an overall majority on little more than 36 percent of the vote. But, it is a very small majority of four (or six if the four Sinn Fein MPs from Northern Ireland who don’t take their seats are discounted), and with the prospect of a referendum on Britain’s E.U. membership now looming large, that could lead to some (very) destabilizing politics. The Conservatives’ experience of small majority government in the 1990s should be a warning to anyone who thinks single party government is going to be straightforward.
Labour, on the other hand, needs to look inward. The party was perceived as too far from the center of British politics with a leader who underwhelmed. The biggest challenge, however, will be to redefine the Britain’s political settlement. The Conservatives might hold power in Westminster, but the SNP’s strength means that a discussion of Britain’s constitutional status is inevitable. Indeed, it may well be that the 2015 election is simply another step on the path to the break-up of the country.
