As I write this the outcome of a many of the various elections in England is not known, save for the fact that Labour is doing rather better than everyone predicted. The most acute disappointment at this development is within the disconnected Parliamentary Labour Party, which is the last and only bastion of the angry remnants of New Labour in England, the Scottish element having been wiped out in 2015. So this post is about Scotland.
For all practical purposes Scotland is now an independent country within the United Kingdom. Not only are its legal and educational systems different; so are its politics. Scotland is by majority consistently a socialist country. But the rightward drift of New Labour brought about the gradual emergence of the SNP as the preferred Scottish Party of the left. There is not room for two of them. Aside from the independence issue, SNP economic and social policies are bang on the money for any traditional Labour supporter. This explains why Labour has been thrashed again and pushed into third place in the Scottish Parliament, so it is now not even the Opposition in the country where at the start of devolution it led the government.
This time the SNP does not have an absolute majority, unsurprising because the electoral system is designed to make that much more difficult than the Westminster model. So while the SNP has won, it has lost its majority. Many will take the view that too much chatter from the SNP of another independence referendum if the UK votes for Brexit, is the root cause of the setback. It is also the reason for the unexpected advance of the Tories to second place in a parliament where for years they have been barely a player. Unionists have felt it wise to get behind the party which whatever the outcome of the Brexit vote, would keep them in the UK. This could be good news, making the break up of the UK less likely than many had feared. That in turn makes a Brexit win more likely as there are an awful lot of voters who would not be willing to risk both an exit from the EU and a break up of the UK. Politics in never straightforward.
We will look at England tomorrow when all the results are in, but this blog has already spotted some very interesting things. Very interesting indeed.