Scotland’s bid for a second independence referendum was dealt a blow when Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party (SNP) lost 21 of its 56 seats to parties that want to keep the UK united.
The SNP, which nearly swept the board in Scotland two years ago, saw a resurgent Conservative Party north of the border claim scalps including former leader Alex Salmond and deputy leader Angus Robertson.
Sturgeon in March called for a second independence ballot, arguing that the Brexit result changed the rules of the game.
Photo: AP
The June 23 ballot on Brexit called the future of the UK into question, because England and Wales voted to leave, but Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay.
After British Prime Minister Theresa May called a snap election, the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats focused their campaigns in Scotland on preserving the 300-year old union.
Sturgeon said it was a “a disappointing result” for her party, two years after it won a landslide in Scotland.
Photo: AFP
“There is clearly uncertainty around Brexit and independence which clearly will be factor in tonight’s results,” she said. “There is “a lot of thinking for the SNP to do.”
Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, said the party had its best result in 20 years.
Scotland delivered the only good news for a Conservative Party that lost its overall majority in the British parliament.
“We had a very clear message in this campaign and there wouldn’t have been so many SNP losses tonight if Nicola Sturgeon hadn’t tried to force through an unwanted second independence referendum in March,” Davidson said.
“That’s what a lot of people in Scotland were reacting against, and I think they’ve spoken pretty loudly to Nicola Sturgeon tonight and she has to take it off the table,” Davidson said.
The SNP still took 35 seats, while the Conservatives won 13 seats in Scotland, achieving the second-largest share of the vote.
Labour won seven and the Liberal Democrats four.
All three national British parties won just one seat each in 2015.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion