NICOLA STURGEON CONDEMNS THE SNP CAMPAIGN AS EXIT POLL PREDICTS LOSSES

• Former leader admits 'big issues' for party as it faces biggest loss of seats

Nicola Sturgeon has condemned the SNP’s general election campaign as she admitted the official exit poll painted a ‘grim’ picture for her party.

The former First Minister looked devastated as she admitted there are ‘big issues’ for the SNP as it faces its biggest ever loss of MPs.

The exit poll predicted that the SNP will slump from 48 seats after the 2019 general election to just 10, eclipsing its previous biggest loss of MPs when its seat count slumped by 21 in 2017.

It would see the SNP fall from being the third-biggest party in the Commons to the fifth, behind the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK.

Speaking as a pundit on ITV, Ms Sturgeon said: ‘This is at the grimmer end of expectations for the SNP.’

She said it is a ‘seismic’ result for Labour, but criticised the campaign run by her close friend John Swinney.

Ms Sturgeon said: ‘There are clearly big issues in a result of this scale for the SNP. The SNP has been in government for 17 years, we are in government now at a time when austerity is really biting, the impact of Brexit is biting - of course there were always going to be real challenges in this election.

‘But of course it is also about the context of the election. 

'This was a “kick the Tories, get the Tories out”, and that always happened to the SNP pre the independence referendum and I think we are reverting to that tonight.

‘But, you know, this is not a good night for the SNP on these numbers, and there will be a lot of questions that need to be asked as we come out of it.

‘I think there will be a question about whether there was enough in the campaign to give effectively a USP to the SNP in an election that was about getting the Tories out and replacing them with Labour.’

Labour are said to have benefited from a ‘tsunami’ across Scotland and could even challenge in parts of southern Scotland and the north east which were considered Tory/SNP battles.

One Scottish Labour MSP said the exit poll is ‘better than we could have dreamed of’.

Labour’s Shadow Scottish Secretary Ian Murray said: ‘It would be an astonishing result for the Labour party given we’ve come from the worst result in 2019 since 1935.’

But he added: ‘The Scottish margins could be tight. A lot of the constituencies had very, very large SNP majorities. 

'A lot of seats could be tight.’

Trying to sound a positive note, SNP leader John Swinney said his party had fought an ‘upbeat campaign, firmly rooted in the values of the people of Scotland’.

He said: ‘Scotland will be glad to see the back of this disastrous Tory government and I am confident that SNP votes across the country will make that happen.

‘This election campaign has brought the SNP together.

‘I am immensely proud of our people-powered campaign, which has taken our positive vision of a better Scotland to the doorsteps across every corner of our great nation.’

Former Scottish Conservative leader Jackson Carlaw said it was a ‘terrible result’ for his party UK-wide, but he hoped it would not be as bad north of the Border, arguing Reform UK had less ‘traction’ in Scotland.

He said: ‘The SNP had said this was another referendum on independence, and that has a momentum all of its own.

‘If it was another referendum on independence then it was a defeat for independence as well.’

SNP constitution secretary Angus Robertson said: ‘Change was in the air. I think people were absolutely fed up with Conservative government and wanted to see them out.

‘I don’t actually think devolved Scottish politics played as big a role in people’s decision making as that desire for change at a UK level.’

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2024-07-04T22:59:06Z dg43tfdfdgfd