Scotland

During the referendum campaign, it seemed at times as if a competition was on to issue the most hyperbolic claim of what might happen should the British public vote to leave the European Union. Now politicians and commentators are competing to come up with the most hysterical assessment of the British decision to leave. Leading the field is Mark Rutte, the Dutch Prime Minister, who declared that ‘England has collapsed: politically, monetarily, constitutionally and economically.’ In other words: without us, you’re nothing. Politics in collapse?

So where are we now? Pretty much in the same position as the traveller who asks for directions to Limerick and is told, 'Well, I wouldn't start from here.' But we are where we are, for better or, more probably, for worse. Not before time it is slowly dawning on people in England that while this was very much their referendum it has consequences for the whole of the United Kingdom. They were warned this would be the case and, if it was not something that was ever uppermost in their thoughts, they cannot claim they were not told. Because they were. I don't dispute English voters' right to privilege their disgruntlement with the EU over their weakened preference for the United Kingdom to remain, well, just that. That's a choice but choices have consequences.

The First Minister gave an interview on Scotland's position in the UK after Brexit on the Andrew Marr Show this morning. Here's what she said: Andrew Marr: Can I ask first of all, is it your priority to have a negotiation as Scotland with Brussels to allow Scotland to more or less seamlessly stay inside the EU? Nicola Sturgeon: My short answer to that is yes, but let me perhaps expand on the position that I find myself in. Marr: Please do. Sturgeon: You know, the first thing I should say is that I didn't want to be in this position this weekend. I hoped very much and campaigned to help persuade people across the UK to stay in the EU, but obviously people in England have voted differently to people in Scotland.

Just look at the map on the BBC website, there are eerie comparisons with the 2015 general election – Scotland has been painted yellow: again. This time, though, there is a difference. This time the whole of Scotland is yellow. There are no patches of any other colour to break up the picture. And that is the crucial point. The whole of Scotland voted Remain: the whole of Scotland without exception, including those areas, like the Western Isles, which voted to leave the EEC last time round. That sends a very powerful message. Nicola Sturgeon knew that, if the UK was going to vote for Brexit, she needed the point of difference between Scotland and England to be as big as possible – and she has got it.

'Remain' have being having a woeful time in the polls lately, with numerous surveys putting 'Leave' ahead. But north of the border, it's been widely thought that it's a different picture and that those wanting Britain to remain in the EU outnumbered those backing Brexit. A new poll out just now suggests that whilst that might still be the case, 'Leave' has also gained considerable ground in Scotland. The STV poll, put together by Ipsos Mori, shows that support for 'Remain' has been slashed by 13 per cent since April. Back then, 66 per cent of Scots surveyed backed Remain, compared to just 29 per cent who were planning on voting out. In the last two months, though, much has changed. Now, the poll shows, 'Remain' has a 53 per cent share of support.

As the dust settles on Thursday’s election, it becomes ever clearer that—with the exception of London—these were awful results for Labour. They were bad enough to suggest that the party is on course for a third successive general election defeat. But, as I say in The Sun, not disastrous enough to persuade the Labour membership that they need to dump Corbyn. One Tory Minister remarked to me yesterday, ‘Labour have done well enough to keep Corbyn. I can live with that.’ Before adding, ‘Corbyn’s survival is the single most important thing for 2020’. The result that should worry Labour most, though, is the Scottish one.

The election results that we’ve had through so far are a pretty potent combination for the Labour party. Diane Abbott said this morning that they show that Labour is on course to win the 2020 general election, while Jeremy Corbyn skirted around what they actually meant for the party in the long-term when he gave his reaction. The potency lies in the party’s devastation in Scotland that points to a long-term structural inability to win a majority coupled with English council results that, by being less bad than expected, deceive about the challenge the party faces in winning in those areas in 2020.

Britain goes to the polls this week, as electoral contests take place in London, Scotland, Wales and across England. They’re the elections which James Forsyth described in the Spectator last week as the ones ‘no one has even heard of’. So what will happen on Thursday night and when will the results be announced? Here’s The Spectator’s run-through of the May 2016 elections: London Mayoral election: Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan go head-to-head in the London Mayoral contest. In 2012, Boris and Ken ran a close-fought race, with Boris getting 971,000 first-round votes to Ken’s 889,918. The relatively small margin between the two meant the result didn’t filter through until early evening.

Strange as it may seem, there are still people around David Cameron who regard the Scottish referendum campaign as a great success. Yes, they say, the nationalists didn’t like the original ‘Project Fear’ — the attempt to frighten Scotland into voting no — but it worked. Alex Salmond was defeated by a 10 per cent margin — proof, it’s argued, that relentless negativity works. Those who complain about it are either losers, or too squeamish to win. Andrew Cooper, chief of the Scottish ‘in’ campaign, said afterwards that the only criticism he would accept is that it was not negative enough. This attitude is a poison in the bloodstream of the Conservative party.

Do you want to know what it looks like when one party has become the most dominant force in its country’s political history, when one in every 30-odd voters is a member of that party and when it is regularly topping 50 per cent in the polls? Then look no further than central Edinburgh this morning where Nicola Sturgeon was launching the SNP’s Holyrood election manifesto. The queues to get in to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre stretched back for several streets as supporters and party members waited eagerly in the warm spring sunshine for the chance to hear, and see, their leader in person.