A political earthquake sees SNP buried under Labour landslide

At moments like this, it is impossible to avoid clichés. A political earthquake occurred overnight, and we have awoken to an entirely new landscape.

As the Labour landslide swept across the UK, the SNP was buried in its wake. It was a disastrous night for the Nationalists.

John Swinney, the SNP leader and First Minister, said there will now need to be some serious “soul-searching”. 

Seat after seat turned to Labour across the central belt. Glasgow was painted red, alongside four out of Edinburgh’s five constituencies. 

Joanna Cherry lost her seat in Edinburgh South West, as did her colleague Tommy Sheppard in Edinburgh East and Musselburgh.

Kirsten Oswald, the SNP’s deputy Westminster leader, was defeated in East Renfrewshire by Blair McDougall, the former campaign director for Better Together during the 2014 referendum.

Sir Keir Starmer's party triumphed in Alloa and Grangemouth, Stirling and Strathallan and three Fife constituencies, and Torcuil Crichton, a former journalist, won Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Western Isles) for Labour for the first time since 2001.

But the SNP did manage to win in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, beating outgoing Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross. That will have raised a smile among activists.

Labour took votes from the SNP and the Conservatives, with support for the latter collapsing in many constituencies. Sir Keir’s party had the momentum and was expected to do very well in Scotland, but this was jaw-dropping stuff.

Just five years ago, Labour returned one MP and the SNP 48. The Nationalist tally is now close to a fifth of that. The consequences may be far-reaching.

The SNP put independence on the ballot paper. It was, as Mr Swinney repeatedly reminded us, “page one, line one” of the party’s manifesto. It now looks likely to be put on the back burner.

“Although we’re going to have a bad election result tonight, I still believe in my head and in my heart that Scotland will be better off as an independent country,” he said.

“But we’re obviously not winning that argument with the public to make that a priority at this moment, so we’ve got to think long and hard about how we address that question and I don’t think that in the early hours of the morning after a general election I can give you the definitive answer to what we do in that circumstance.”

Soul-searching can quickly turn to finger-pointing. Speaking to journalists after losing her seat, Ms Cherry – who won a majority of nearly 12,000 in 2019 – did not mince her words.

"I fear that under the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP has squandered opportunities to advance the cause of independence, and squandered opportunities to continue our previous reputation for governing well,” she said.

Scottish Labour now has its sights on the 2026 Holyrood election. The SNP, for its part, will hope Scots grow disillusioned with Sir Keir and by extension his party in Scotland. Labour will not have an easy task in Downing Street.

Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s Westminster leader, was re-elected in Aberdeen South with a reduced majority of 3,758. He said it had been “a very difficult and black night for all of us”, and accepted the SNP’s independence mandate was now a hard sell.

“What we need to focus on now as a party is how we get ourselves into winning shape in the next 18 months in the build up to the Scottish Parliament election,” he said.

“That’s going to require a lot of effort from people and it’s probably going to require some people to open the curtain and look at some of their own skeletons and realise that we’ve not been doing things as well as we possibly could have been. Myself included in that regard.

“So it’s a time for reflection, it’s a time to listen and hopefully a time to rebuild and come back better. But for just now my thoughts are just with my colleagues and indeed their staff who have lost their jobs across Scotland and I just wish them well.”

Ms Sturgeon, who was appearing as a pundit on ITV, said the SNP is not “dead and buried” when it comes to the next Holyrood election.

“I think the mistake opposition parties will make is… just assuming the SNP is dead and buried for 2026,” she said. “Yes, the SNP has to re-establish trust on some of the core competence in government issues. We’ve been in government for 17 years – this has been a really difficult time for any party of government, but that doesn’t let us off the hook.”

The former first minister said Mr Swinney’s job is not under any pressure. The latter only took over in May, just a couple of weeks before the general election was called.

He was prevailed upon to steady the ship after a stormy period for the party following Ms Sturgeon’s resignation last year. He will now have to steer it in a new direction, with a much-reduced crew.

In Edinburgh, as the votes were counted, one gleeful Labour politician said the Nats were not used to losing. It will be interesting, he said, to see how they cope. It will indeed.