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As You Were: The Scottish Parliament Election of 2021
Author(s) -
Johns Robert
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
the political quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.373
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1467-923X
pISSN - 0032-3179
DOI - 10.1111/1467-923x.13047
Subject(s) - parliament , opposition (politics) , surprise , voting , general election , brexit , political science , independence (probability theory) , political economy , law , politics , sociology , economics , european union , international trade , statistics , mathematics , communication
The Scottish Parliament election of May 2021 was an ‘as you were’ election. Vote shares were more or less as in the previous election five years earlier. Barely any seats changed hands and the Scottish National Party (SNP) was left tantalisingly short of a majority. One reason for this stasis is that voting in Scottish elections remains largely an expression of support or opposition to independence—and opinions on that issue are deeply entrenched. Opinions on most other issues, like the pandemic or the Alex Salmond scandal, were mostly driven by constitutional preferences and certainly could not override them. Only Brexit had the power to shift significant numbers of votes. However, because the Conservatives lost Remainers while gaining Leavers and the reverse was true of the SNP, the net result was little change. The entrenchment and polarisation over independence means that this election was never likely to break the constitutional deadlock—and it did not surprise.