United Kingdom general election, 2017 (Scotland)

United Kingdom general election, 2017

8 June 2017 (2017-06-08)
All 59 Scottish seats to the House of Commons
Turnout	66.4%, 4.7%
First party Second party   Leader Nicola Sturgeon Theresa May Party SNP Conservative Leader since 14 November 2014 11 July 2016 Last election 56 seats, 50.0% 1 seat, 14.9% Seats before 54 1 Seats won 35 13 Seat change 21 12 Popular vote 977,569 757,949 Percentage 36.9% 28.6% Swing 13.1% 13.7%   Third party Fourth party   Leader Jeremy Corbyn Tim Farron Party Labour Liberal Democrat Leader since 12 September 2015 16 July 2015 Last election 1 seat, 24.3% 1 seat, 7.5% Seats before 1 1 Seats won 7 4 Seat change 6 3 Popular vote 717,007 179,061 Percentage 27.1% 6.8% Swing 2.8% 0.8%
Colours on map indicate winning party for each constituency

The 2017 United Kingdom general election in Scotland was held on 8 June 2017 and all 59 seats were contested under the first-past-the-post electoral system.

The general election in Scotland was fought in the aftermath of the 2016 Scottish Parliament election in which the SNP won a third term in government but failed to secure an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament. At that election the Scottish Conservative Party increased their number of MSPs, overtaking Labour as the largest opposition party. The 2016 EU referendum was held a month later and the final result was for Britain to leave the EU, despite Scotland voting 62.0% remain. Negotiations are due to shortly since invocation of Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union in March 2017, which was expected to dominate the election campaign.^[1]

In line with the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, an election had not been due until 7 May 2020, but a call for a snap election by Prime Minister Theresa May received the necessary two-thirds majority in a 522 to 13 vote in the House of Commons on 19 April 2017.^[2] The Conservative Party, which has governed since 2015, was defending a majority of 17^[3] against the Labour Party, the official opposition. The third-largest party was the Scottish National Party, which won 56 of the 59 Scottish constituencies in 2015.

The election resulted in the SNP remaining the largest party despite losing 21 seats, retaining 35 of the 56 seats won two years earlier. The Conservatives doubled their share of vote and won 13 seats while Labour and the Liberal Democrats took 7 and 4 seats respectively. The Conservatives recorded their best result in Scotland since 1983 (in terms of seats won) or 1979 (in terms of share of the popular vote). Until this election, the Conservatives had not been the second largest party in Scotland since 1992 and had not been the largest unionist party in Scotland since 1955.

Defeated SNP MPs included former SNP leader and First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond,^[4] SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson,^[5] SNP Chief Whip Mike Weir;^[6] as well as John Nicolson^[7] and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh.^[8] Commentators suggested that the election might reduce the SNP's case for a second referendum on Scottish independence.^[9][10][11] Following the election, the SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon acknowledged that her party's plans for a second referendum were 'undoubtedly' a factor in the election results. The SNP also abandoned its fundraiser for a possible referendum after raising half of its £1m target, just over a week before its preset deadline.^[12]

Political context

Following a referendum held on Scottish independence in 2014 which saw 44.7% of voters in Scotland vote for Scotland to become an independent state and 55.3% vote for Scotland to remain a part of the United Kingdom, the SNP won 56 of the 59 UK Parliamentary seats in Scotland at the 2015 UK general election, campaigning on a manifesto focusing on bringing greater devolved powers to Scotland following a promise made by the three main unionist parties in Scotland to bring more devolved powers to the country should it reject independence.^[13] The SNP manifesto at the 2015 general election repeatedly stated that "The SNP will always support independence - but that is not what this election is about".^[13]

Labour only returned one MP in Edinburgh South, a reduction of 40 compared to the previous election. The party lost out heavily to the SNP in working class areas around central Scotland, with Scottish Labour's safest constituency (Glasgow North East) returning the largest swing in the election at 39.3% from Labour to SNP. The party performed best in its more affluent constituencies, with Scottish Labour's leader Jim Murphy missing out in his former constituency of East Renfrewshire by just 6.6% of the vote. Labour's next closest constituency result came in Edinburgh North and Leith, where they missed out to the SNP by 9.6% of the vote, and in East Lothian, where the SNP polled ahead of Labour by 11.5% of the vote.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats lost 10 of their 11 Westminster constituencies from 2010, with its safest constituency in Great Britain - Orkney and Shetland - becoming the only Liberal Democrat constituency in Scotland. They marginally lost out to the SNP in East Dunbartonshire, where former Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson lost out to the SNP by 4% of the vote. Among those to lose their constituency at the election were former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander. The Liberal Democrats came third in Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk and West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, constituencies which they had held in the previous election.

The Scottish Conservative Party has not held a majority of Scottish seats in a general election since 1955 and it lost all eleven of its seats in the election of 1997. Since 2001, the party had only held one Westminster seat in Scotland. In 2005, following the re-organisation of Scottish constituencies, that seat was Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, a mostly rural constituency near the Scottish borders. In 2015 its share of the vote in Scotland decreased by 1.8% but managed to retain Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, as its only Scottish constituency. It had been reported the party could gain Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk,^[14] a seat which they lost out on to the Scottish National Party by 0.6% of the vote.

The SNP polled slightly under half of the votes, 49.97%, in Scotland in 2015, becoming the largest vote share in a general election in Scotland for a party since the Conservatives won a majority of the popular vote, 50.1%, in 1955.

The impact of the 2016 EU referendum and a proposed second Scottish independence referendum were predicted to be a large theme in the 2017 general election.^[15] The SNP predicted that many pro-union voters would switch allegiance to the party in order to remain within the European Union. Polling from YouGov suggests people moving towards independence as a result of Brexit would be offset by the number of previously pro-independence Leave voters saying they would vote against independence as a result of Brexit.^[16]

A study by Electoral Calculus, published on 14 May 2017, concluded that the Conservatives could win 11 seats in Scotland.^[17][18]

Campaign events

• On 21 May, BBC Scotland hosted the First live TV debate, all six Scottish leaders.^[19]
• On 24 May, STV was supposed to host the second Live TV debate from the Tramway theatre in Glasgow with the four main Scottish leaders^[20] but this was postponed until Tuesday 6 June.^[21]

Opinion polling

Results

Party[22]		Seats					Votes
		Total	Gains	Losses	Net +/-	% seats	Total votes	% votes	Change
	SNP	35	0	21	21	59.3	977,569	36.9	13.1
	Conservative	13	12	0	12	22.0	757,949	28.6	13.7
	Labour	7	6	0	6	11.9	717,007	27.1	2.8
	Liberal Democrat	4	3	0	3	6.8	179,061	6.8	0.8
	Scottish Green	0	0	0		—	5,886	0.2	1.1
	UKIP	0	0	0		—	5,302	0.2	1.4
	Others	0	0	0		—	6,921	0.3	0.3
							2,649,695	66.4	4.7

Target seats

References