Transcription
As many of you will know by now, on Thursday, people up and down the country voted in what turned out to be a pretty dramatic set of elections. In the English local elections, Labour lost over a thousand council seats, while Reform swept up massive gains up and down the country, and the Greens were able to win their first council in London in Waltham Forest alongside Mayes in Hackney and Lewisham.
While we explained much of this in a video yesterday, due to the timing of that video's release, we weren't able to delve into the Scottish and Welsh elections as results didn't come out until later on Friday. So, with the results now out and with the SNP doing incredibly well in Scotland and Plaid doing incredibly well in Wales, in this video we're going to dive a bit deeper into what exactly happened in Wales and Scotland. Which parties have benefited and what this means for both Scotland and Wales and also the UK as a whole.
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Now, we're going to split this video into two parts, starting with the Scottish Parliamentary elections and then the Welsh Senate elections. So, let's get into it.
When it comes to Scotland's results, one region really let everyone down. And when I say everyone, I specifically mean myself and Ben, who were working on this script until 11:30 last night, hoping that they'd finally declare their results more than 24 hours after the polls had closed. Unfortunately though, the count for the beautiful Highlands and Islands region was seemingly being done on an abacus because the results still haven't come in and it's approaching midnight and I still have to go home and fully animate and edit this video. So, for the sake of not completely destroying me, these numbers are excluding the final six MSPs coming from this region.
Regardless, as of the time of recording, the SNP had won 58 seats, down from 64 won in 2021. This is something of a remarkable result for a party that's been in power since 2017, although it is slightly short of the 65 needed for a majority that Swinney had been looking for.
Now, on paper, Labour haven't actually had that bad of a night. They've declined from 22 seats in 2021 to 17 at the time of writing. However, given how close Labour came to the SNP in the polls back in 2024, there is still a sense of devastation in the party, obviously alongside the results in Wales and the local elections. Nonetheless, this could technically still put them in second place. However, this will depend on which way the regional MSPs from the Highlands and Islands end up going.
Regardless of those final MSPs, though, this is still a decent result for Reform, giving them significant power in Scotland and demonstrating that the threat they pose is not just south of the border. The Greens have also had a pretty good election with them doubling their seat share from 8 to 16. This includes winning their first ever Holyrood constituencies in Edinburgh Central, ousting SNP 'beast' Angus Robertson, and in Glasgow Southside, Nicola Sturgeon's old constituency. As Ross Greer, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, pointed out, this means that everyone in Scotland now has a Green MSP.
So, what explains these results? Well, prior to the election, things did start looking up for John Swinney's SNP. Polls showed that he was on the cusp of achieving a fifth consecutive victory for the SNP despite polling showing in 2024 that Labour were on track to overtake them in the polls. Thanks to the unpopularity of Starmer, Labour fell in the polls. And as a result of the rising popularity of Nigel Farage's Reform UK, both Labour and Reform went into election polling relatively similarly.
However, it would be disingenuous to suggest the popularity of the parties in Scotland are simply a result of the performance of the parties in Westminster. Scots went into this election most concerned about the economy and health issues that they didn't think the SNP government had performed well on with 65% and 70% respectively saying that they thought the SNP government had handled these issues badly. Similarly, 51% of voters went into the election with unfavorable views of John Swinney compared to just 34% who had favorable views.
So, how come the SNP won yet another election and won it so resoundingly? But the thing is that the SNP were essentially seen as the least worst option. People might not love them, but the SNP were a party most trusted of all of the parties on the NHS and the economy. And John Swinney was actually the most popular party leader in Scotland. Additionally, Swinney worked hard in the campaign to try and move the issue of independence up the agenda in the run-up to the election, knowing that support for independence is higher than support for the SNP themselves. In fact, Swinney made clear in the campaign that if the SNP were to achieve an overall majority, i.e. more than 65 seats, he would use this to push for another independence referendum. However, with the SNP falling slightly short of this, it seems they'll have to adapt his plan somewhat.
Anyway, let's move on to Wales. Even going into the election, it was clear that this could have been the worst election for Labour of the three elections taking place on Thursday. That's because it's hard to express just how much of a stronghold of Labour support Wales has been for decades. Labour has won every election in Wales in both the Senate and Westminster since 1922. That is until this week. Not only have they lost the election, but the Welsh Labour Party's leader and First Minister of Wales actually lost her seat. The first time in British history that a sitting head of government has lost their seat in an election.
Now, when it comes to the wider results, it's a little hard to compare how each party has done versus their previous performance because the Senate expanded from 60 seats to 96 seats since the last election in 2021. With this in mind, in the last election, Labour secured 35 seats. This time around though, they secured a mere nine, around 9%. The main beneficiaries of their decline have been Plaid Cymru who won 22% of the seats in the last election but won 45% this time round, as well as Reform UK who won no seats last time round and have won 34% of them this time. It's worth noting too that the Conservatives haven't had a particularly great election either. They secured around 27% of the seat share last time but managed a mere seven this time round.
So how did we get here? Well, as in Scotland, part of this is simply down to the unpopularity of the Labour government in Westminster. Welsh Labour's leader admitted that Keir Starmer was an issue on the doors, and she previously admitted that Labour could lose control of Wales as a result of a protest vote against Keir Starmer. However, this isn't to say that Starmer is entirely to blame. Wales's Labour leader also just isn't that popular. In March, she had an approval rating of negative -24, a figure that remains stagnant for the best part of the last year. By contrast, Plaid's leader has maintained a mildly positive approval rating for the last year or so.
When it comes to issues, as in Scotland, voters in Wales prior to the election were most concerned about the economy and health. Unfortunately for Welsh Labour, mere days prior to the election, it was announced that NHS Wales had missed government set targets to cut waiting lists to eliminate waits of 2 years or more and to make sure that nobody is waiting more than 8 weeks for diagnostic tests. On top of this though, the new voting system in Wales has likely helped smaller parties such as Reform and Plaid. Previously, the Senate used an AMS voting system, which is a mixed voting system that's also used in the Scottish Parliament. However, for the first time in this election, Wales used a fully proportional system, a closed regional list system, which has likely hurt Labour and the Conservatives for that matter even further.
So, that's how the elections went in Scotland and Wales. But what does this mean for Starmer's government nationally? Well, these results combined with the thrashing suffered in the local elections means that Starmer just isn't looking to be in the best place right now. Voters seem to think that losing these elections should be grounds for the Prime Minister to hand his notice in, and there are rumors that his leadership challenges are on maneuvers. Burnham is potentially gunning for a Westminster seat, and Rayner is weighing up whether to pull the trigger on an official challenge, but ultimately, we'll just have to wait and see whether there's actually anything behind all of this.
Regardless, there's much more to examine here, and we'll be doing so in the next issue of our magazine, too. Along with a whole section dedicated to UK politics. There, we'll be diving even deeper into these elections and their impact with our most detailed analysis. We'll also be discussing whether the UK has become ungovernable, unpacking Sam's attempt to cozy up with the EU, as well as the state of the special relationship.
If you're interested in that, then you should subscribe using promo code summer26. That way, you'll get 20% off every copy as long as you stay subscribed. Plus, you'll get an additional £3 off your first copy, bringing the cost as low as £4.99.
While you're there, you might also want to grab a copy of this Spring's issue, too, titled Disunited Kingdom. In it, we discuss the various dividing lines in Britain today, from the growing political divides to the fracturing of the Union, the North-South Divide, the gap between young and old, and many more. It's not all bleak, though. We also discuss what unites us and how Britain could be fixed.
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