The Results Are In.

The votes have been counted, and the results are in. All across Scotland people have voted for who they want to elected into, or remain in power. This time though, the elections seem to be different than expected. Anyone prior to the results being published would have thought that the SNP would gain another landslide victory, and in some areas that may be true, it is not true however in the main target that the SNP had its sights sets indefinitely on, Glasgow.

In the build-up to the elections, the SNP had been gaining major victories all across Scotland, in areas previously thought unchangeable. Most notably the die-hard Labour city of Glasgow. It seemed as though the SNP would have toppled the Labour administration in Glasgow, or at the least shifted the city to an NOC (No Overall Control) status. To some people’s surprise however, that was not the case. The city still remains a Labour controlled area, with four constituencies remaining purely in labour control (every other area is NOC).

Despite their hiccup in Glasgow, the SNP have enjoyed a relatively major boost across the board. Gaining 57 seats, this increases their total number of councillors to 424, making them the clear winners of the Scottish council elections. Labour trails closely behind by 30 councillors. What could be taken from this is that the SNP have reached the arc of their success and Labour is creeping back up to take power. That however, would be an incredibly short-sighted view.

What one has to take in mind is that these are the mid-term elections, the SNP are only halfway through their term. Mid-term elections are notorious for knocking down the power of the party in power. Just look at the elections south of the border, the Conservative & Liberal Democrat coalition has suffered heavy losses to the hands of Labour, something which is clearly mirrored up here in Scotland. These two correlating sets of results are reflective of the general feeling across the whole of the United Kingdom.

Following the banking crisis, the recession and the recent double-dip recession. The public has lost faith in the Westminster government. They are seen to be in favour of the bankers who caused the crisis in the first place, as they are generally regarded as the two parties most in favour of the wealthier echelons of society. This has caused the votes previously for the Con-Dem coalition to shift over to Labour’s hands as the public has lost faith in current government.

This has also happened in Scotland (to begin with we were never particularly fond of the Conservatives r the Liberal Democrats). Both the aforementioned parties have suffered heavy losses across the board, both losing a significant amount of votes to SNP & labour. The SNP however have heavily increased their support, gaining in more areas than any other party has. This clearly shows that Scotland is rejecting Westminster politics. Both the Conservative and Lib-Dem votes have shifted off to the SNP and Labour seemingly randomly.

The reason Labour has gained so many seats in correspondence to the SNP however is clearly not through their own efforts. Most people in Scotland are still ignorant to the real state of our nation and the SNP, and are still not ready to shift over to a nationalist government. Where is the next logical step for defective Lib-Dem and Conservative voters?  The next available Westminster party, Labour.

This is not a defeat for the SNP and the independence movement. It is a sign of our need to work harder to secure our right to self-determination. It is only through hard work and the constant efforts of individuals that Scotland will truly be shown the benefits of independence. Although that may be a large task, we’ve got the best of two years to make it happen.