Unprecedented results leave Holyrood changed but not settled, writes Gina Davidson

By this time next week, all 129 MSPs elected on Thursday will have been sworn in at Holyrood, will have an office, will have elected a new Presiding Officer, and will be looking at the five-year term ahead and wondering what it will bring.

But what did the election itself bring for Scots?

For one, a fifth consecutive SNP government. The polls said all along that would be the outcome, the only question was just how large the SNP group would be. Ultimately, John Swinney’s party won 58 MSPs, and all but one are constituency representatives. It’s not quite the “landslide” the party claims - given they are down six MSPs and their vote share is also down, by 9.5 per cent in the constituency vote and 13.1 per cent in the regional list - but for a party which was facing returning just 35 MSPs when John Swinney took over as leader, this has been a remarkable result.

That in itself is unprecedented. But what it’s not is the overall majority that he said would be needed to ask Westminster for the powers to hold a second independence referendum.

Let’s not pretend, though, that means the constitution is parked for five years. Far from it. Already, John Swinney is shifting position, pointing to the “biggest pro-independence majority” in Holyrood, as with the Scottish Greens, there are now 73 MSPs who favour an independent Scotland. Mind you, that’s only one more than after the last election.

His problem, though, is he was clear throughout the campaign that an outright SNP majority was needed. He has not achieved that. Any PM in Downing Street can therefore brush off his Section 30 request, though it was always highly unlikely Keir Starmer, or whoever replaces him, would ever have given it the nod.

What of Scottish Labour? Well, that’s another unprecedented result - but this time because it’s the worst ever experienced by the party which once had such dominance in Scotland, though those days are becoming harder to remember for many Scots.

Anas Sarwar entered the campaign believing the choice for First Minister was between him and John Swinney. He ran a presidential-style campaign trying to convince the public of that, but in the end, they chose the other guy. Labour returned just 17 MSPs, down from the 21 it had at the last election.

He had already put distance between himself and Keir Starmer, calling for the PM to go back in February, in the hope that he could avoid people’s dissatisfaction with Labour at the UK level from tarnishing his brand. It didn’t work. Further, many Labour supporters thought that taking such a step proved Sarwar disloyal and even untrustworthy, given how close he had been to Starmer.

There was also a lack of big ideas, of a distinct policy offer to grab the public’s attention - and also a lack of any campaign to remind people they could vote Labour on the second peach ballot paper, the way Labour has returned its vast majority of MSPs in recent history. Aiming purely for constituency seats has backfired spectacularly.

There were two silver linings for Sarwar, however - his deputy Jackie Baillie won her constituency seat of Dumbarton for the seventh time, and they took the Western Isles from the SNP.

He will be licking his wounds and contemplating how long he stays as leader, no doubt. There would be some irony if Starmer carries on, but Sarwar goes. In the meantime, he and his reduced group will need sharp elbows when Parliament reconvenes, as they tied with Reform when it comes to MSP numbers, and there will be battles ahead over who is really the main opposition.

Reform was a third unprecedented result, coming from nowhere to be, along with Labour, the second largest party in Holyrood with 17 MSPs. The parliament’s standing orders don’t seem to have any rules or regulations about what happens when parties tie, but we will find out pretty soon who gets to ask the first question at FMQs and where they get to sit in the Chamber.

Both Labour and the SNP ran campaigns to reject Reform, to lock them out of power. Rhetoric many Scots clearly ignored. Malcolm Offord’s party may not have won any constituencies - they came very close to taking Banff and Buchan from the SNP - but the proportional representation voting system for the Scottish Parliament delivered for them. Still, they will feel they should have performed better given the sweeping gains made by Reform in the council elections in England and, of course, its gains in Wales.

Only one of Reform’s MSPs has ever been elected to Holyrood before - Graham Simpson, who had defected from the Tories. Just how the party performs in Holyrood could well be down to him. He is anything but a disruptor - even if many others now elected want to be exactly that.

Of course, Reform success came at the Conservatives’ cost. They too have had an unprecedented result - their worst of the devolution era, sliding from second largest party to fifth with just 12 MSPs. Leader Russell Findlay has pointed the finger of blame squarely at Reform for splitting the pro-union vote in seats such as Eastwood and Ayr, and allowing the SNP to win.

The fifth unprecedented result is that of the Scottish Greens. They had the best day of any party when the votes came in - winning 15 MSPs and breaking through in two constituencies. Indeed, winning Edinburgh Central saw them defeat former SNP Culture Secretary Angus Robertson. In Glasgow Southside, they defeated the SNP equalities minister Kaukab Stewart, who had been aiming to hold the seat, which was at one time Nicola Sturgeon’s.

Perhaps they have the Zack Polanski bounce to thank for some of that, but interestingly, if anecdotally, younger voters seemed inspired to turn out and vote Green, in Edinburgh Central at least, because of the war in Gaza and the former MSP’s meeting with the Israeli ambassador in his government role. Angus Robertson denies it, but Lorna Slater believes it played a part.

There has been much talk already of more deals between the Greens and the SNP, but given their new size, they will want to flex their muscles as a large group in Holyrood - so don’t expect them to be doing any deals with the SNP despite their alliance on independence. There are many areas in which the parties disagree.

Finally, to the LibDems - they had a good day, doubling their numbers - the one fly in their soup being the loss of Shetland to the SNP. Yet they could well be the party to which John Swinney turns for support when he’s looking to get his Budgets through. They’ve proved their willingness to work with the SNP in this manner before.

Some 63 new faces will be in Holyrood next week, being sworn in as MSPs. But the policy arguments, particularly when it comes to the constitution, remain decidedly old.

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Gina Davidson is LBC's Scotland Political Editor.

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