SNP Victory Underlines Divisions in the Political Landscape

By Andrew Grice Political Editor

Britain emerged from Thursday’s elections as a divided nation after the Scottish National Party (SNP) became the largest party in the Scottish Parliament, Labour lost ground in the south of England and the Tories failed to make a major breakthrough in the North.

A dramatic election in Scotland saw the SNP win a knife-edge victory last night over Labour by 47 seats to 46, inflicting Labour’s first significant defeat north of the border for 50 years. The poll was overshadowed by a fiasco in which up to 100,000 ballot papers were disqualified amid confusion among voters and problems with a new electronic counting system.

Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, claimed he had the "moral authority" to govern and that Labour did not. "Scotland has changed for good and for ever," he said, adding: "Labour will never again be able to assume a divine right to rule Scotland." He promised an independent judicial inquiry into the voting scandal.

The historic victory by a party committed to pulling Scotland out of the United Kingdom was a crushing blow for Labour and could cast a dark cloud over Gordon Brown’s first months as Prime Minister. It could provoke huge tensions between the Government and the Edinburgh parliament – and demands from English voters to allow Scotland to break away.

Mr Salmond, who is determined to become Scotland’s First Minister, will try to reach agreement on a "progressive coalition" with another party but if he fails, he could seek to govern as a minority administration.

Labour could try to cling on to power by striking a deal with the Liberal Democrats to keep the SNP out. A weekend of frantic horse- trading is in prospect. Jack McConnell, who was Labour’s First Minister going into the elections, said the parties had a responsibility to keep "all options open and consider what is best for Scotland". But a renewed Lib-Lab coalition would enrage the SNP.

In its traditional heartland in Wales, Labour’s vote declined to 32 per cent, its lowest level since 1918. It remains the largest party in the Welsh Assembly but will need the support of another party to run it. Labour is expected to hold coalition talks with the Liberal Democrats next week. After Tony Blair’s last election as Labour leader, the coalition which propelled him to power in 1997 is in danger of fracturing. Senior Labour figures admitted the party was suffering from the same "southern discomfort" which denied it victory in the 1980s and early 1990s when it failed to win parliamentary seats in the south of England.

The new electoral map of Britain showed that Labour had been completely wiped out in 89 local authority areas, many of them in the south of England – a potential threat to Labour’s hopes of retaining its parliamentary seats in the region. Plymouth and Gravesham, two of Labour’s last councils in the South outside London, were seized by the Tories.

David Cameron went on a whistle-stop tour of the Northwest yesterday to trumpet Tory gains in the region as a "real breakthrough", saying his party now controlled more authorities after gaining power in Chester, South Ribble and Blackpool. "We are now the party of the whole country, winning in every part of the country, winning against Labour, winning against the Liberal Democrats," he said.

However, election experts said the Tories’ progress was more modest than the party claimed, pointing out that it failed to capture key targets such as Bury and Bolton. Senior Tories admitted their performance had been "patchy. The party still lacks a single councillor in Liverpool, Manchester or Newcastle. The Tories gained more than 850 seats in England and claimed they now have their biggest number of councillors since 1978 when changes to the structure of local government are taken into account.

With results in from 309 of the 312 councils, the Tories had taken control of 38 more councils. Labour was down by 485 councillors, losing control of eight authorities. The Liberal Democrats lost 242 councillors and four town halls slipped out of their grasp.

Mr Cameron’s party suffered a setback when the BBC revised down its projection of the Tories’ national share of the vote from 41 per cent to 40 per cent, the same as in last year’s local elections. It put Labour on 27 per cent, up one point on last year, and the Liberal Democrats on 26 per cent (down one point).

Politicians acknowledged that the nation had become a "divided kingdom" while putting the best possible gloss on their own party’s results.

John Reid, the Home Secretary, said: "The truth of the matter is that you have to be able to win in all areas if you are going to have a sustainable government. For many, many years the problem Labour had was that we couldn’t win in the south of England. The problem David Cameron has now is that he cannot reach outside the shire counties to the sort of places like Crewe, Bolton, Bury or Manchester."

The Liberal Democrats had a disappointing election, losing more than 240 seats in England and provoking fresh speculation about the position of their leader Sir Menzies Campbell. Senior party officials said they had been squeezed in rural wards in the South, but had been more successful against Labour in the northern cities.

The Tory gains at the Liberal Democrats’ expense in the South will ring alarm bells in the third party as it could put some of its parliamentary seats at risk at the general election; 33 of the Liberal Democrats’ 63 MPs represent seats that were held by the Tories before the 1997 general election.

Despite the defeat in Scotland, Labour was relieved that it avoided a meltdown in England. Mr Blair insisted it had been "a dreadful set of results" for the Liberal Democrats and the Tories had not made the breakthrough they had sought.

"Everyone said we were going to get hammered, it was going to be a rout, but in fact it’s not turned out like that," he told reporters. "You always take a hit in the midterm but these results provide a perfectly good springboard to go on and win the next general election."

Mr Brown insisted that Labour had fought back in Scotland after being earlier written off. He added: "To all those who came back to Labour – and to everyone throughout Britain – my resolve is that we, the Labour Party, will listen and we will learn as we continue to work for and serve the people of Britain."

Sir Menzies acknowledged the elections had delivered a "mixed bag" for his party but insisted he had "one or two very good results to be cheerful about". He declared he would lead his party into the general election.

(c) 2007 Independent, The; London (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.