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Labour loses power in Scotland

Hasan Suroor

LONDON: In a historic election defeat, Labour Party on Saturday lost power in Scotland with the pro-independence Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) emerging as the single-largest party, ending the former's 50 years of political dominance. Despite a surge against the SNP's independence agenda, Labour ended up with one seat less than the nationalists who claimed that Scotland had changed "for ever and for good''.

In a jibe at its bid to court smaller parties to form a coalition government, SNP leader Alex Salmond said the Labour had lost the "moral authority'' to govern Scotland. "It is clear indeed which party has lost this election and the Labour party no longer has any moral authority left to govern Scotland. Scotland has changed for ever and for good. Never again will we say that Labour Party assumes it has a divine right to rule Scotland.''

Humiliation

The loss of Scotland was seen as a personal humiliation for Chancellor Gordon Brown, one of the most important Scottish Labour figures, at a time when he is preparing to become Britain's Prime Minister. He said he would "listen and learn'' from the defeat as party backbenchers called the results a "wake-up call'' for the leadership.

In Wales, too, Labour suffered far too many losses for it to retain control over the Assembly, and on Saturday it was desperately looking for allies to form a Government.

In what was seen as its worst election performance since it came to power in 1997, Labour suffered massive losses in elections to the local Councils in England. It lost more than 450 seats, and control of a number of councils. Conservatives made huge gains, mostly at Labour's expense, and claimed that they were "on course'' to win the next general election.

Contrary to expectations, however, Liberal Democrats had disappointing results as they lost more than 250 Council seats and just about managed to hold their ground in Scotland and Wales.

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