Scotland: SNP wins 4th term, short of overall majority

[RandySF]

The Scottish National Party (SNP) has won parliamentary elections in Scotland, but failed to gain an absolute majority, according to final results from Thursday's vote.

The win gives SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon a platform from which to launch a second Scottish independence referendum — otherwise known as "indyref2."

Sturgeon has long favored staging a second vote on leaving the UK and with the help of the Green Party, she may now get her chance.

Referring to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's threat to stop any such moves, Sturgeon on Saturday said: "There is simply no democratic justification whatsoever for Boris Johnson, or indeed for anyone else, seeking to block the right of the people of Scotland to choose our own future."

Though the SNP failed to win an outright majority, it is the fourth election in a row in which the party has dominated at the polls.




https://www.dw.com/en/scotland-snp-wins-4th-term-short-of-overall-majority/a-57472899

[Claustrum]

1. So essentially, Boris Johnson thinks that UK can break from EU,

but Scotland can't break from UK?

[Emrys]

2. For context, Scotland has a PR election system that makes an outright majority near impossible.

In fact, only the SNP have done it, once in the past, in 2011.

There are 73 directly elected constituency seats. The SNP won 62 of them. These are topped up by 56 regional list seats which are weighted against any party that has won directly elected seats in a given region. The SNP won two of them, bringing it just one short of an overall majority.

If the SNP chooses to govern as a minority, it's done so in the past, usually with support on key votes from the Greens. It could also seek a more formal arrangement with the Greens.

I gave a bit more background on the results in the UK Group: https://www.democraticunderground.com/108820592