A divided nation

Abstract

T he June 2017 general election will be remembered as an occasion when the political map of the UK was dramatically and unexpectedly redrawn. This was nowhere the case more than in Scotland, where the outcome indicates the birth of a three-party system. The major headline was the SNP losing its hegemonic status, going down from fifty-six MPs to ‘only’ thirty-five (though this is still a majority of Scotland’s fifty-nine seats). This setback was compounded by the loss of nearly 500,000 votes: the total SNP vote fell from over 1.45 million to under 980,000. This is partly explained by a decline in turnout, from 71 per cent in 2015 to 66 per cent in 2017. The Tories gained over 320,000 votes and increased their number of seats from one to thirteen. On the other hand, the number of votes for the Labour Party only increased by around 10,000, to a total of 717,000, but this secured them an additional six seats.