On 25 May the Constitution Unit invited three electoral experts to give their analysis on the results of the recent devolved elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In this post Artur Foguet Gonzalez summarises their key insights.

 The fifth round of elections to the devolved parliaments and assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland took place on 5 May. On 25 May the Constitution Unit hosted three electoral experts ­– Professors Ailsa Henderson, Roger Scully and Cathy Gormley-Heenan – to digest the results. This post summarises the key points that were raised by the speakers.

Scotland: Professor Ailsa Henderson, University of Glasgow

Scotland awoke the morning after the election to two significant results: the Scottish National Party (SNP) was still the largest party in Holyrood but no longer held a majority, whilst Labour’s decline continued as it fell behind the Conservatives to become the third largest party in Scotland. Ailsa Henderson used her data from the Scottish Election Study (SES) to explain these results.

For the SNP three factors explain their continued popularity: the constitution, valence and leadership. Though the data shows that the constitution is not top of voters’ agenda, it also shows that voters are very unlikely to back a party that does not share their view on independence, so whilst the constitution may not be driving voter choice, it is a constraining factor. The SNP was the only party likely to collect votes from those who had supported independence in the 2014 referendum, whilst No voters were split between multiple parties. On valence, when voters were asked which party they trusted most on particular issues the SNP came top, not only on ‘standing up for Scotland’ but on every single issue. Nicola Sturgeon, meanwhile, remains an extremely popular figure.

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