Forget Nicola Sturgeon's exit: the election will be won south of the border

NICOLA Sturgeon’s sudden resignation on Wednesday, which ended her eight-year reign as First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party, also put an abrupt full stop to her ambition of leading Scotland to independence.

- Emily Sheffield

Her plans for making the next election result a de facto referendum on independence are now “dead in the water”. Unionists were jubilant. There was also cheering in Sir Keir Starmer’s camp as Sturgeon’s departure has wider ramifications than independence. After suffering a catastrophic loss of seats in 2015, in what was once a stronghold for the Scottish Labour Party, Labour now needs to win back popularity north of the border.

There is just one Scottish Labour seat in the House of Commons — the Tories have six. Even though Labour managed to regain six sitting Scottish MPs in 2017, they lost them again in 2019. That’s fairly humiliating, when you recall during Tony Blair’s reign they had 56. Even in Holyrood, Scottish Labour only have 22 MSPs while the Tories have 31 (and held on as the second largest party in Scotland again after the 2021 Scottish parliament elections). In local councils the picture is not much better as Labour is only marginally ahead of the Tories, which will rob the party of supportive foot soldiers during a general election.