Scotland Should Try Again
The Scottish referendum was a huge moment in the history of Scotland with a close vote to keep them within the UK. In 2014 the UK held a referendum in Scotland on whether Scotland would become an independent country outside of the UK. The vote results were 45% on yes to becoming an independent nation to 55% voting to stay within the UK. The Scottish National Party (SNP) was a big supporter of the Scottish referendum and the only party to support the yes vote in the referendum. Right after the 2014 referendum would be the 2015 general election within one year the general election would be held in Scotland to vote for a nation’s parliament that they almost left the year before. The 2015 general election surprised many polls with the conservatives gaining the majority of the seats however the more surprising thing was that the SNP received 56 seats in the UK parliament only losing 3 seats in the entirety of Scotland.
It was surprising they won so many seats especially after what many viewed as a loss for the party in 2014 even though they didn’t run they were the proponents of the referendum and the yes campaign and after the loss of the yes vote it could’ve been viewed as weak for the party. Even though the 2015 general election was a first-order election for England and Wales and even Northern Ireland but Scotland, the effects of these elections have a similar effect as first-order elections have on second-order elections. In Scotland with such a close turn around for citizens when most elections they’ve participated in have been years apart it was less than a year between the referendum and the 2015 general election. The general election had about 15% less turnout than the referendum which fits into it being a second-order election. In recent years in Europe the increase of second-order elections in countries because of the election of the European Union in those countries typically the people who vote are fewer than the national elections and those who do vote typically send a message with who they vote for. This is true in the case of the UK in their vote for the European Union and the biggest party they send to the EU is the UK independence party (UKIP) and this is highlighted with what happened with BREXIT.
According to Fieldhouse and Prosser in the article on how the referendum cost Labour the election in Scotland in the conclusion they state that the Scottish independence referendum showed a start of the switch in allegiance from the Labour party to the SNP who have almost identical policy ideas. This graph shows the intention of voting for the SNP in Scotland between February 2014 to May 2015 which is the period between the influence of the Scottish referendum vote to the election of the UK parliament. As you can see up until September the Majority of the votes for parliament were not going to go to the SNP but right after the referendum in September, it raised 5% from the previous polling in June than by the time of May 2015 the time of the general election it has risen 10% between the beginning of the referendum and the time of the elections showing the people might’ve been trying to show that even though the referendum failed the still feel Scotland needs to be better represented in the UK.
