Scottish Labor will become the closest rival to Nicholas Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party after Conservative support fell to its worst election result in a decade.
Labor enjoyed an unexpected victory in SNP-controlled West Dunbartonshire, taking full control of the council as it won some seats in Scotland’s 32 councils and made surprising gains, setting it up to take the second-largest share of the vote. .
Anas Sarwar, the leader of the Scottish Labor Party, said: “This is the first positive and happy day for the Scottish Labor Party. [after 10 years of defeats] and I am very confident that by the end of the day we will be in a comfortable second place in Scotland. Our eyes are now firmly on the SNP. “
The results sparked sharp accusations among the Scottish Tories, who turned out to be in third place after voters punished them for the Partygate crisis by abstaining from elections or shifting support to Labor or the Liberal Democrats.
Embarrassed by defeats in affluent areas such as Edinburgh and East Renfrewshire, the Tories enjoyed a rare glimmer of success in the homeland of Scottish leader Douglas Ross Morey in north-east Scotland, winning three seats.
Ross said: “It was a difficult night and in some areas it was very disappointing. We have lost excellent candidates in too many parts of Scotland. “
He said the Partygate scandal dominated voter talks, combined with the cost of living crisis. “There is absolutely no doubt that people have sent a message to the prime minister and the government, especially around Partygate. That’s absolutely clear. “
The SNP remained dominant, gaining little control of Dundee with one seat after five years in the minority government and winning 162 of the 1,227 seats available by 4pm on Friday, with 21 more, with a number of tips yet to be announced.
But Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP’s first minister and leader, endured several minutes of unrest as the Scottish Greens, the SNP’s partners in Holyrood, enjoyed a surge of support in urban and rural elections.
In Glasgow, formerly the center of Labor, the SNP remained the largest party, but its group’s leader, Susan Aitken, was unexpectedly defeated in her area by the Scottish Greens’ first candidate, Holly Bruce. Aitken took his place after counting second preferential votes.
Across Scotland, the SNP remained the largest party in many governments, including Perth and Kinross, Stirling and Angus, where the Tories are throwing seats. In Fife, the SNP won five seats and the Liberal Democrats won five, at the expense of Labor, who lost four, and the Tories, who lost six.
The Greens were in a lively mood after winning first places on several councils across the country, including Shetland, East Lothian and the Scottish Borders, and increased their numbers in areas including Orkney and the Highlands.
The party’s strategists believe they are reaping the benefits of their power-sharing agreement with the SNP after last year’s Holyrood election, which made it much easier to convince voters that the Greens’ first preference would not be wasted. In Glasgow, the newly elected Greens included the city’s first trans councilor, Elaine Gallagher.
The election was disastrous for Alex Salmond Alba’s breakaway nationalist party, as it failed to retain either of its two seats on the council and won only a small fraction of the vote elsewhere in its second election test. Despite presenting 111 candidates, she again failed to make a single breakthrough.
Alba’s secretary general, Chris McEllini, who fled the SNP, lost his seat on the Inverclyde council with 126 votes. Another Alba candidate in Inverclyde, who was elected to the SNP in the last election, also lost his seat. Both seats were returned by SNP candidates.
The Labor victory in West Dunbartonshire, where they won 12 of the 22 seats, is even more important because the proportional voting system used in Scottish council elections rarely allows a party to win an overall majority.
In the 2017 election, no party had full control of any of Scotland’s 32 local authorities. The three island authorities of Scotland, the West Isles, Orkney and Shetland, are also dominated by unbound independent advisers, so they have no ruling party.
The Western Isles, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar in Gaelic, had the most significant development of the island authorities when its undesirable status as the only all-male council in Scotland ended with the election of two women, Francis Murray and Susan Thomson, both for the SNP.
Voters in North Whist also elected the first ethnic adviser from the Western Isles minority, Mustafa Hosin, a popular Algerian-born teacher.
Eight women ran in the election following a concerted campaign by council and equality activists to improve gender diversity. Catriona Murray, a public activist who failed to win a seat, said the council and community still have a lot of work to do to improve diversity.
She said the low share of women councilors would continue to control the council and attention should be paid. “I just don’t like the image he gives to the people of the West Isles. This is a misconception because women are eligible, “she said.
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