In Scotland, the nationalist tide has swept all before it / GUARDIAN

In Scotland, the nationalist tide has swept all before it

Martin Kettle / Friday 8 May 2015 04.16 BST / http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/08/scotland-nationalist-tide-labour-liberal-democrat-snp-united-kingdom?CMP=fb_gu

The SNP’s slaying of Labour and the Lib Dems feels epochal – and the United Kingdom could be next in line

In the 2010 general election, every parliamentary seat in Scotland re-elected the same party it had elected in 2005. But that was then and this is now – and there is an absolute chasm between them. Last night, in the 2015 election, the overwhelming majority of Scottish seats sent a new Scottish Nationalist face to Westminster. It is the biggest electoral revolution in the British Isles since Sinn Féin obliterated the Irish home rulers in 1918. And the message for the United Kingdom is every bit as threatening.

The SNP said during the campaign that it wanted a Labour win south of the border bolstered by an SNP win in Scotland. But in truth this election was an each-way bet for the SNP. A Conservative win in England offers an even tastier prospect for Nicola Sturgeon’s party – an ancient and visceral dividing line which allows the SNP to stand tall both as Scotland’s champion and the defender of the postwar settlement.

Astonishingly, the English Tory party seems equally happy with the confrontation – to the consternation of leading Scottish Tories. The prospect of a UK referendum on the EU may offer Sturgeon a cast-iron pretext for planning a second independence referendum too.

The collapse of Labour and Liberal Democrat support in Scotland feels epochal. The roots of this virtual wipeout include the collapse of the old solidarities of industrial Britain, the inward-facing machine politics of Scottish Labour in the Gordon Brown era, the wrenching effect of Tony Blair’s Iraq adventure, and Ed Miliband’s failure to stop the SNP becoming the voice of post-industrial Scotland.

The Lib Dems have been toast ever since they went into coalition with the Tories. Labour’s collapse raises the question of whether it can long resist the rise of English nationalism in the shape of Ukip’s advance in the north east and Yorkshire.

Sturgeon counselled caution when the TV exit poll awarded 58 of Scotland’s seats to the SNP on the stroke of 10pm. Yet no one can truthfully say that this result was unexpected. The polls in Scotland have been consistently hardening in the SNP’s favour for weeks. Anti-SNP tactical voting may have prevented a total nationalist triumph. But in the end, the nationalist tide has swept almost all before it. This election has changed the face of Scotland, threatening the future of a UK which had seemed robustly intact after the independence referendum only a few months ago.