An SNP era of domination over Scottish politics is over after the party appeared to be left with just a handful of seats.
Nicola Sturgeon acknowledged that people would blame her for the catastrophic losses, with the BBC projecting the Scottish National Party would retain only six of the 48 constituencies it claimed in 2019, falling behind Scottish Labour, which will win its first national election in Scotland in 14 years.
Under Sturgeon, the SNP won more than 80 per cent of 59 Scottish seats. However, the BBC projected at 3:50am (12:50pm AEST), based on early results and its exit poll, it would only retain around a tenth of Scottish constituencies in a humiliation for current leader John Swinney.
The predicted collapse marks a dramatic end to a period of nationalist hegemony in Scotland.
The exit poll prediction of 10 seats was later downgraded to six by the BBC, with early results showing “remarkable” swings to Labour.
Kirsty Blackman, in Aberdeen North, hung on to what was seen as the safest SNP seat in Scotland by fewer than 2000 votes, while the fourth-safest, Kilmarnock and Louden, was taken by Labour on a 22 per cent swing with a majority of more than 5000.
One SNP candidate in Lanarkshire said, “I’m going to lose, we’re all going to lose”. Ailsa Henderson, an elections expert at the University of Edinburgh, said every SNP-held seat in Scotland was “in play” at the election.
Scottish Labour claimed only one Scotland seat at the last election, coming fourth behind the Tories and Liberal Democrats, but was now on course to win well over 30.