The election result could kill Scottish independence for a generation

The exit poll puts the SNP on ten seats. That is very much at the low end of the spectrum of expectations among the Nationalists. The party won 48 out of 59 Scottish seats in 2019. There are 57 constituencies north of the border, and if John Swinney has managed to win only ten of those, he and his rank and file will be bitterly disappointed. On the ITV results programme, Nicola Sturgeon stuck the boot in, describing the exit poll as ‘the grimmer end of expectations for the SNP’ and said the party’s campaign failed to put forward a ‘unique selling point’. 

Swinney, formerly Sturgeon’s number two, stepped forward in May to replace her immediate successor Humza Yousaf, following 13 disastrous months in charge of the devolved Scottish government. He was sold as a safe pair of hands who could save the SNP from catastrophic losses in this election, but ten seats isn’t all that different to what might have been expected had Yousaf led the party into the election.