[Closed] Should Nicola Sturgeon resign?

Last night was a steady as she goes type result IMHO

I'm not sure losing about 15% of your vote share is "steady as she goes"

2015 was unlikely to be repeated, but the SNP lost more seats and more vote share than expected. They did badly by their own standards. Both votes in 2017 have put the SNP at around 35% which is lower than it has been for some years.

Tories UK wide did badly too (with higher UK vote share than the SNP Scottish vote share) - just because you end up better than the others doesn't mean you did well. Corbyn also didn't do that well, he avoided the car crash but if you compare it to Brown's performance in 2010 he has nothing to celebrate.

I don't think Nicola needs resign but she does need to go home and think again... As does every other party leader except perhaps for Sinn Fein and the DUP in Westminster, but they should be sorting out Stormont.

Corbyn also didn't do that well, he avoided the car crash but if you compare it to Brown's performance in 2010 he has nothing to celebrate.

Corbyn wasn't in charge in 2010.

I'm an SNP voter and agree it wasn't a good night for the party (although not the total disaster that a return to 2010 levels would have been). There needs to be an analysis of who defected and why in order to understand what happened.

[quote=grumpysculler] I don't think Nicola needs resign but she does need to go home and think again...
Isn't that what everyone (including Nicola) has said?

Corbyn wasn't in charge in 2010.

No, that was Brown...

Isn't that what everyone (including Nicola) has said?

Yes. Are you saying this thread is pointless?

No, that was Brown...

And Miliband.

[quote=grumpysculler ]

Isn't that what everyone (including Nicola) has said?

And sent her homeward,
Tae think again.

I could make the point that Nicola Sturgeon did not stand in this election, but Teresa May did.
Nicola Sturgeon did not call this election so that she could gain a bigger majority, but Teresa May did.w
The Snp didn't lose their majority in this election, but the Tories did.
It's not time for Nicola Sturgeon to resign but it's time Teresa May did.

So let's get this absurdity right ... 😯

Sturgeon did not do well ... call to resign.

Corbyn did not become PM ... call to resign.

Farron did not gain enough seats ... call to resign.

PM May loses a few seats ... call to resign.

All their PR people did not live up to standards ... call to resign.

So who is left? 🙄

You missed Paul Nuttall, who has resigned.

The 2015 result was always going to be a fluke, on the back of everyone thinking that independence was off the table for a while. No-one predicted the last two years of chaos.

So Nuttall turns out to be the only honourable one out of the whole bunch? 🙂

bencooper - Member
You missed Paul Nuttall, who has resigned.

As much as he is passionate about his role he is not the leader he wished to be.

He is not that polished. 😛

The 2015 result was always going to be a fluke, on the back of everyone thinking that independence was off the table for a while. No-one predicted the last two years of chaos.

thegreatape - Member
So Nuttall turns out to be the only honourable one out of the whole bunch?

Some SNP ideas are decent, and if this result makes them put independence to the side for a bit to concentrate on everything else, that's not a bad outcome as far as I'm concerned. It's pretty much what I was hoping for in Scotland (although I'd rather someone not the Tories had taken the seats off them). Sturgeon should stay and have a good crack at general domestic governing, she's a very able politician.

thegreatape - Member
Sturgeon should stay and have a good crack at general domestic governing, she's a very able politician.

The SNP lost 45% of their seats. That is a pretty poor performance.

You missed Paul Nuttall, who has resigned.

Which makes him the odd one out - as nobody asked him to 🙂

The SNP are still the third biggest party in Westminster. I expect the Nasty Party will continue to ignore them, but JC will depend on their support.

We still have to see the Brexit T & Cs.

10 years in government and since 2015 she could walk anything she wanted through devolved powers. Yet Scotland is still a state and they've been unaccountable. Look forward to some opposition,just a shame it's the Tories on a contrived basis to avoid Indy2.

She shouldn't resign but could do with winding her neck in a bit.

Sturgeon and the SNP have had a poor election no doubt. Why?

I think she was caught on the back foot rather, expecting two years to make a case for independence. Davidson made this all about another independence referendum and concentrated the unionist vote around that despite the fact its actually fairly irrelevant to a Westminster election. Sturgeon kept trying to push it back to UK wide issues but wasn't able to. The SNP simply were not ready to make the case for independence and Davidson cleverly made this all about independence. Labour, and Lib dems jumped on the same track and also spent their campaigns attacking the SNP over independence and the record in Holyrood - neither issues actually anything much to do with Westminster. This created a 3 V 1 debate and the 3 other parties had a virtual non aggression pact to oust the SNP. Add this to a hostile media and we get the result we got. So a clever piece of politics from Davidson rather than a blunder by Sturgeon

One thing that is clear is there is no appetite in Scotland right now for another referendum. However this could and probably will change over the next couple of years

Over all its probably no bad thing for Sturgeon to have had a setback - the last ten years of her political career have been very successful apart from the ref result. A little reminder of humility will not go amiss but overall this changes little for the SNP

[quote=CaptJon ]The SNP lost 45% of their seats. That is a pretty poor performance.

The Lib dems gained the highest percentage increase of seats of any party so obviously they had the most success on election night then eh ?

Its great fun abusing stats 😉

I don't think so - although her party performed badly. Here's why:

She didn't call the election unnecessarily like May did.

She didn't go and introduce a load of totally unpopular policies - independence is kind of part and parcel of the SNP, the only thing she really did wrong was taking too long to put a manifesto out that wasn't calling for a further independence referendum, and talking about it prior to GE being called. Other parties capitalised on her party's position on this - but let's remember 55% of voters didn't vote for independence so this latest result isn't a horrendous failure.

Also, I suspect that many of the other voters have realised that there are now other parties that will represent them, and that the SNP can't do much at Westminster anyway. I'm not sure why the Tories did so well really, but that's life, there are people out there with very different opinions to me.

philjunior

................... I'm not sure why the Tories did so well really, but that's life, there are people out there with very different opinions to me.

Just the fact Ruth tank commander is both personable and a good player of the political game counts for a lot - that and the tactic of going for a tactical unionist vote meaning that in constituencies where the tories had the best chance of beating the SNP, labour unionists voted tory. Don't underestimate the hatred for the SNP from large parts of the scottish labour movement. They see the SNP as the enemy not the tories.

Ruth 'tank commander'..... I didn't know that thanks for your insight

Quite a good analysis of the current political situation in Scotland.

http://allanfaulds.scot/ge17-scotland

Sturgeon and the SNP have had a poor election no doubt. Why?

Because circa 50% of the population don't want independence at the moment, and Labour have mixed messages to them - wee wifey Kezia said nay, corbyn was a bit less sure.

This meant lots of unionists voted Tory. It's a protest vote, the same thing as SNP profited from last election.

It's the only explanation I can have for desperate mining areas voting Tory. That andvthe fact they're full of loyalist retards.

That's a slur on the mentally retarded.

😆

Was away with some mates last weekend. Proper small town central belt types. Real working class brought up in situations that would be made infinitely worse by Tory politics.

But, as they were life long rangers fans, they are by default Tory/No voters because that's the way they're "supposed" to vote because of the combination of their religion and sporting affiliation

Absolutely zero understanding or engagement with the politics of any party, but they'll continue to vote a particular way because that's what they're supposed to do.

They are not isolated cases in Scotland unfortunately

benz - Member

So, the gains made between 2010>2015 fully removed

Here's an article from 2014, predicting that the SNP might get as many as 26 seats, and that parity in votes between Labour and the SNP was possible.

http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/yougov-chief-snp-could-get-26-westminster-seats-1-3557314

The bottom line is, they won the election, they're the only party with a majority, and it's a result that 3 years ago would have been seen as a triumph. 2015 skews everyone's perception, and no wonder, but I think everyone with a clue knew teh SNP would fall back. I didn't expect it to be so far because, like the SNP, I didn't expect Labour to help the Tories to 13 bloody seats.

I would say that Sturgeon and the party did make a tactical mistake but a totally understandable one- they didn't realise the extent to which voters would tactically vote Tory as an anti-independence vote. (wish I could say I saw it coming). And of course most people didn't expect Scottish tories to give us a conservative government.

With hindsight, that could have been countered- a unilateral statement the exact opposite of "vote labour or get tory", and telling SNP voters to consider voting Labour in Tory/Labour marginals, would have brought it all in the open and forced Labour to openly say whether they'd rather have Tories than the SNP and would risk a Tory government to achieve that. They could even have withdrawn a couple of symbolic candidates in seats that they didn't expect to win. Frankly it seems Labour believed that the Tories were going to win a majority so didn't care about how much by.

Frankly I think Kez Dugdale should be considering her position. Her "victory" brought them 6 seats (I think all from the SNP, not the Tories) but only 2.9% of the vote and still leaves them a distant 3rd, and the cost is incredible. Not just to Scotland and to the country by returning a lame duck Tory government, but I think it'll cut the party too once it sinks in. There's a lot of people who genuinely would rather see the Tories beat the SNP but a lot that'll see it as what I've had to stop calling a pyrrhic victory, since it's actually a pyrrhic defeat.

Labour think they did well in my seat by narrowing the gap and being a stronger third but they were close to turning it blue- not just by dividing the left wing vote but by opening the door for Labour voters to go Tory, since they said "They must be beaten" while everyone knew Labour couldn't do it. The entire Tory message in the seat was "Labour says beat the SNP, and only we can do that" And that's true elsewhere, too. They forgot who the enemy is.

Meanwhile- it didn't take many of these seats to prevent the current majority coalition of chaos from happening and they could all have been stopped from going Tory with tactical voting. And plenty of SNP voters are happy to vote Labour to beat the Tories- I did for years, still would even though they're bellends. In this case, there wasn't a single case where Labour could realistically have taken a seat that the Tories did, but lots where they could have turned them yellow, or rather just avoided turning them blue:

Aberdeen South- Tory 18746, SNP 13994, Labour 9143, Lib Dems 2600
Angus- Tory 18448, SNP 15503, Labour 5233, Lib Dems 1308
Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock- Tory 18550, SNP 15776, Labour 11024. Lib Dems 872
Banff and Buchan- Tory 19976, SNP 16283, Labour 10775, Lib Dem 1241
Dumfries and Galloway- Tory 22344, SNP 16701, Labour 10775, Lib Dem 1241
Gordon- Tory 21867, SNP 19254, Labour 6340, Lib Dem 6230
Moray- Tory 22637, SNP 18478, Labour 5208, Lib Dem 1078
Ochil and S Perthshire Tory 22469, SNP 19110, Labour 10847, Lib Dem 1742
Renfrewshire East Tory 21496, SNP 16784. Labour 14346, Lib Dem 1112

(some of these gaps are fairly large but remember we're not just talking about Labour and Lib Dem voters voting SNP- we're talking about Labour and Lib Dem voters who were encouraged to go Tory to "fight independence".

It was very nearly much worse.

Tactical voting in Scotland is getting insane. With a mix of Corbynites and Blairites in the next election it can only get worse.

They forgot who the enemy is.

imnotverygood - Member

The point I think you are missing: The choice people made wasn't 'do we vote Tory or get SNP', but 'do we vote Tory or get another IndyRef'.

Except that's not at all how it worked out- people lost interest in winning and it became about how they chose to lose but just a couple of seats swing meant no Tory government, which meant no hard brexit, which meant [i]no indyref 2.[/i] But instead they invested their effort in attacking a party that they knew would support a Labour government, to the benefit of the party that prevented it.

I think most people tactically voting against the SNP didn't think they were going to bring about a Tory government- they'd given up and thought that was inevitable. But right now we have a Tory government at least partly because of Scottish Labour's campaign and if that doesn't give a Labour voter conniptions, it bloody should

[quote=Northwind ]
I think most people tactically voting against the SNP didn't think they were going to bring about a Tory government- they'd given up and thought that was inevitable.
So a re-run will be interesting. Do the Labour Yoons vote Labour next time in order not to support the Tories and thereby risk splitting the Yoon vote to let the Nats win?

I think the trick will be if they think they can win seats or just give them to the tories. But since the SNP made indyref2 about hard brexit, they may have to say "in the event of a labour government and a soft brexit, we won't be asking for a new ref" in which case hopefully there'll be a return to sanity and we can get back to the main priority of throwing David Mundell into a volcano

After all, right now the SNP still do have a perfectly good mandate to demand a second referendum, despite it all- they still have an outright majority in Westminster seats and a pro-indy majority in the scottish parliament. But it's not that they can't demand it now, it's that they won't. Hard brexit was one prerequisite and the other was a hopeless labour party and people seeing a tory boot stamping on a human face forever. And [i]that's[/i] how Scottish Labour should have fought back against indyref 2.

didn't think they were going to bring about a Tory government- they'd given up and thought that was inevitable.

imnotverygood - Member

Nobody could reasonably expect that Tory seats in Scotland would allow the Tories to stay in government.

But everyone could see it was possible- and also the much higher chance that it could be the factor that let Theresa May claim success from her stupid election.

Let's be honest, Kez would have been quite happy with a Labour disaster and Corbyn kicked out. That's the level of her ambition- different levels of failure. That's why they're celebrating 3rd place, 7 seats and a 2.8% increase in votes is beyond her wildest dreams. If you'd predicted that 10 years ago you'd have been laughed at

From an English point of view.

The SNP made the election all about Scotland (not unreasonably) and as they are the party on power, many voters took them at their word. Rather than looking at the UK wide picture, they looked at the local picture. Hence one of the many reasons why the SNP lost so many seats.

Again from my English point of view, some other points.

- The SNP were never going to repeat the success of the previous GE. They were always going to lose a few seats. The scale of the loss is the tough bit. The Tories lost 13 seats and are being widely hammered, SNP lost near twice as many.
- The SNP can correctly claim that they are the largest party in Scotland and in terms of Parliament they are the third largest party, but their influence has taken a hammering. Even if they work with Labour (a big if) they cannot defeat the Tories.
- If we ignore the 2015 GE result, then the SNP has done really well, but the problem is that people won't forget the 2015 GE result. All their achievements will be measured against that high water mark.
- They lost two 'big' hitters. You can argue that possible Salmon was past his sell by date, but it does mean that any SNP elected politician is now seen as vulnerable.

Of bigger concern to the SNP is the Scottish Parliament elections. People can see real opposition to them. They have been in power for 10 years and as such their delivery of services will be the real focus, not Indyref2. The problem that the SNP have is that they main aim is for an independent Scotland, they have had to change to run the Government, which must take the focus of independence or if independence is the focus it means that delivery of services fail.

Again, this is the views of someone from England, who has the misfortune to live in one of the safest Tory seats in the UK. But I see tough times ahead for the SNP

It wasn't the SNP that made it all about indyref 2 or devolved issues - it was the scots tories who took the campaign into these areas

That's like saying it wasn't the Tories who made it about welfare cuts for the vulnerable, it wa Labour.

I think Davidson did a brilliant job on making sure indyref2 stayed on the agenda, she's a smart cookie and it helped her hugely

The SNP result in Scotland would be heralded as a landslide by the anti-SNP media if it had happened to any other party - 60% of the seats.

I did think the SNP campaign was a bit weak and playing down IndyRef2 instead of replying more aggressively and asking what was wrong with giving people a choice.

But as Carnegie once said after one of his managers made an expensive mistake "It cost me a lot for you to learn that, no way am I wasting the money spent on that lesson and sacking you" (paraphrased)

The missing votes are very likely from Labour voters returning to the fold because of Corbyn. It does not mean that they no longer support independence. In fact it may be a good thing if it weakens the internal Scottish Labour opposition to it, and we end up with cross party support.

The Scottish party leader who should resign is Kezia Dugdale and be replaced by someone who won't sabotage Corbyn.

It is quite possibly that by telling the Scottish Labour faithful to vote Tory that Labour didn't pick up more seats. She hates Corbyn, so this was sabotage, and yes, she is that dumb. Otherwise Labour may have had a majority in the UK.

As for Ruth Davidson, she played a blinder. Just hope she can reconcile jumping into bed with the DUP and her relationship with an Irish Catholic lass. The Tories really need her in England. Please lure her south.

kimbers - Member

I think Davidson did a brilliant job on making sure indyref2 stayed on the agenda, she's a smart cookie and it helped her hugely

Yup, she's one of the best people in british politics imo, certainly the only leading tory worth a god-damn. She made a couple of big mistakes where she came too far into line with the national party but mostly she held her line and did exactly the right thing. (and outright told them to do one, when they said "fall in line with the national campaign"- not hard to see that was the wrong tactic but harder and braver to stand up to it) And she took full advantage of Labour's idiocy too, she can fight on two fronts.

Well deserved and hard worked for distant second place and should get the highest respect that best loser can 😉 But instead she finds herself in a deal with the devil which she seems to have no say in. And when you're campaigning you can make distance between you and the national party, you can't do that when you're keeping them in power. It feels unfair tbh, she deserves better than her party, they became a branch office again the day after the election. We'll see how well she deals with what comes next.

It wasn't the SNP that made it all about indyref 2 or devolved issues - it was the scots tories who took the campaign into these areas

The other parties had no choice though. Nicola brought the prospect of Indyref 2 to the forefront of Scottish politics when she said she was demanding one a few months ago. The SNP tactic (knowing most voters were anti another referendum) was to focus on the SNP being the only credible opposition to the Tory party (of the UK). The plan was to win votes that way. However had they then won more than 50% of the total vote you can be certain Nicola would have used that as "proof" that she had a mandate for another referendum.

Therefor the other parties had no option but to turn the election into effectively Indyref 2. And with more than 60% of the electorate voting for parties standing on a unionist platform I think the SNP now know their demands are dead in the water. John Swinney as good as admitted that on Friday morning.

And voters like myself, who would have considered the SNP purely on other policies, had no option but to vote to keep them out.

SNP lost out to the Tory voters who have been shielded from some of the worst Nasty Party policies by the SNP in Embra: things like the NHS being underfunded. There are more.

It seemed to me that Ruthie was a one-trick pony: No Referendum. The SNP failed to raise the Tory record in government. They were too nice.

In an example of turkeys voting for Christmas, those fishing communities have forgotten that Edward Heath sold their fishing quotas down the river.

I read this morning that no Nasty Party figure was available for interview.

Rev Stu at Wings has worked on some numbers and comments accordingly.