08:10
Our Scotland correspondent, Libby Brooks, has this analysis of the election results and what this could mean for Scottish independence:
With all the ongoing speculation about whether the SNP can secure an outright majority of seats at Holyrood, it’s worth repeating that the proportional Scottish voting system was very much designed not to deliver a majority for any one party, to break with the two party see-saw at Westminster.
There’s now some chatter that only a SNP majority would mean a mandate for a second independence referendum. Throughout the campaign, there’s been an assumption that a pro-independence majority at Holyrood could be made up of Scottish Greens (and possibly Alba, though this is looking increasingly unlikely as the votes come in) MSPs as well as SNP members.
So it’s worth checking what the relevant manifestos say.
According to the SNP manifesto: “If the SNP is returned to government and there is a simple majority in the Scottish parliament for [the referendum] bill after the election there can be no moral or democratic justification for Boris Johnson or any Westminster government to obstruct the right of the people of Scotland to decide their own future.”
While the Scottish Greens state: “The legislation covering all aspects of the referendum, including the question and the timing, should be decided by a simple majority of the Scottish parliament. The Scottish Greens will campaign and vote for a referendum within the next parliamentary term…”
So it’s clear that, for the parties themselves, a simple majority of pro-independence MSPs equals a mandate for a second independence referendum. And that’s before we get into questions of vote share: it looks like the SNP is currently standing at 47.2%, which is more than both Scottish Tories and Labour combined.
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07:54
My colleague Jessica Murray has this update in the West Midlands mayoral election:
The Northern Powerhouse Partnership has predicted Conservative Andy Street will win the West Midlands mayor election comfortably on first preference votes alone.
According to their polling, conducted by Opinium, Street predicted take 54% of first preference votes compared to 37% for Labour’s Liam Byrne.
Once second preferences are taken into account, Street’s lead grows from 17 to 18 points, winning 59 per cent to 41 per cent.
When Street was elected to the role in 2017, he only narrowly beat Labour by less than 4,000 second preference votes.
The result is due to be announced later this afternoon.
07:53
Hi everyone, I’m Molly Blackall, taking over the blog for a little while.
If you spot any updates or results coming in from your area, feel free to let me know on Twitter.
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07:49
Turning away from the elections for a moment, the Ulster Unionist party leader Steve Aiken has announced his intention to resign. In a letter to the party chairman, Aiken wrote: “To achieve our goals, we now need new leadership.”
The UUP is no longer a major force in Northern Ireland politics. But Aiken’s move follows the announcement last week by Arlene Foster that she was resigned as DUP leader and first minister.
My colleague Molly Blackall is taking over the blog for a bit now. I will be back later.
07:33
Scottish voters rejected Tories’ anti-referendum platform, says SNP minister
Kate Forbes, the finance secretary in the Scottish government, told BBC News that voters in Scotland would not get a second independence referendum immediately. When it was put to her that because of the pandemic independence supporters would have to wait for a referendum, she replied:
That’s right. We have said that the priority right now is steering the country through this crisis and emerging from the pandemic.
But when asked if that meant she agreed with Boris Johnson, who told the Daily Telegraph that he was opposed to a referendum being held “in the current context” (see 8.03am), she replied:
I don’t think that’s what Boris Johnson is saying … I what he’s saying is there will be no referendum because he’s scared of the result.
What we’re saying is that our priority is managing the crisis, but it’s important that the people of Scotland have another say over their long-term future.
And I remind you that the Conservatives did campaign on a single issue, which was no to a second independence referendum. They have three seats to our 40. And I think that tells a story of its own.
Earlier her Scottish government colleague John Swinney said he thought Johnson’s use the of formula “in the current context” indicated that there might be scope for agreement between Edinburgh and Westminster on the timing of the referendum. (See 8.48am.)
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07:09
Although Labour has been losing council seats in England, and it lost the Hartlepool parliamentary seat to the Conservatives for the first time in more than 60 years, in Wales it has been doing well. Here is an extract from a briefing that Welsh Labour sent out overnight.
Welsh Labour has once again confounded expectations, on course to hit 30 seats once Mid and West Wales regional votes are announced – while outperforming all pre-election polls and breaking new ground.
After 22 years in government, Welsh Labour were given a resounding vote of confidence, and will now form their sixth consecutive government since the advent of devolution.
The briefing note also credits the party with defeating Plaid Cymru in Rhondda and Llanelli, cutting Tory majorities in Monmouth and West Wales and getting swings from both Plaid and Tories.
Labour has currently 30 of the 60 seats in the Senedd. There are list seats still to be decided, but none of them are expected to go to Labour. But, as this chart from an Institute for Government briefing shows, 30 seats matches Labour’s best performances (in 2003 and 2011) in the previous five elections under devolution.
As many commentators have been pointing out, the Welsh results are further evidence that these elections have seen incumbents – or, more probably, administrations associated with delivering the vaccine rollout – doing well.
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06:44
The husband of Woman F, one of two female civil servants to originally accuse Alex Salmond of sexual harassment, has given a powerful interview to the Daily Record in which he describes in graphic detail the effect of the former first minister standing in the Holyrood election on his wife.
He tells the Record:
It has been impossible to move on with our day-to-day lives. My wife had always been driven in work and in life but is now a shadow of her former self, incapacitated by depression.
Talking about the vicious trolling endured by his wife, and indeed all those women who give evidence about Salmond’s alleged behaviour at his trial last March, he explains:
The social media attacks were like a black hole we were sucked into. It felt like watching my wife self-harm when she was glued to a screen reading abusive comments. She has been bullied by thousands of people she has never met who are hiding behind the shield of the internet.
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