Sturgeon: Scotland will no longer be sidelined after SNP election landslide
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Version 0 of 1. The SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, has insisted Scotland will no longer be “sidelined or ignored” at Westminster after her party won 56 seats in the general election, sending political shockwaves across the UK. The first minister said the landslide victory, which saw her party take all but three seats north of the border, gave Scottish nationalists a “mandate on a scale unprecedented for any political party, not just in Scotland but right across the UK”. Her comments came after David Cameron vowed to lead a “one-nation” Conservative government. The prime minister’s statement was seen as an acknowledgement that his tough campaign talk on further benefit cuts for hard-pressed Britons and his polarising attacks on the SNP had left him with work to do. Half of those who voted in Scotland on Thursday backed the SNP, with the party winning 1,454,436 votes across the country. While that has resulted in a record number of nationalist MPs at Westminster, it remains unclear how much influence they will be able to exert after Cameron’s Tories won a shock majority government. But as she gathered with her MPs for a photocall against the striking backdrop of the Forth bridge outside Edinburgh, Sturgeon said they would now be pressing for an end to austerity. “Our message to Westminster is simple, our message to the politicians of the other parties at Westminster is this one: no longer will Scotland be sidelined or ignored in Westminster. Our voice will be heard. Our interests will be protected.” Sturgeon, whose party had just six MPs after the 2010 election, said: “Scotland has given the SNP a mandate on a scale unprecedented for any political party, not just in Scotland but right across the UK. We will use that mandate to speak up for and protect the interests of Scotland. “Let us be very clear: the people of Scotland on Thursday voted for an SNP manifesto which had ending austerity as its number one priority, and that is the priority that these men and women will now take to the very heart of the Westminster agenda.” Sturgeon added: “After Thursday, and as I told the prime minister when I spoke to him yesterday, it simply cannot be, and it will not be business as usual when it comes to Westminster’s dealing with Scotland.” As Cameron made his statement outside Buckingham Palace on Friday after his election triumph, he promised greater powers for the union’s individual countries, in an apparent effort to head off Scottish separatism. He said: “I want to bring our country together, our United Kingdom together, not least by implementing as fast as we can the devolution that we rightly promised and came together with other parties to agree both for Wales and for Scotland. “In short, I want my party, and I hope a government I would like to lead, to reclaim a mantle that we should never have lost – the mantle of one nation, one United Kingdom.” Thank you - now let's make Britain greater still: https://t.co/WVTT8qCjpr pic.twitter.com/xaiyCCLirx But Sturgeon indicated on Saturday that her newly emboldened party would not settle for the proposals agreed by the Smith commission set up after last year’s referendum. “I want to see a more empowered Scottish parliament, I don’t think the Smith commission proposals go far enough. “We set out in our manifesto the priority powers we think require to be devolved to Scotland; powers over employment, the minimum wage, business taxes, welfare. These are the levers we need to get our hands on if we’re to grow our economy faster and get more people into jobs and tackle poverty more effectively.” Cameron used his victory as a rallying call to attract new members to the Conservative party. In a Facebook post, he thanked voters for their support and urged them to join the Tories, repeating his declaration on Downing Street on Friday that “we are on the brink of something special in our country”. The prime minister and his wife, Samantha, were pictured on Friday night entering Mark’s club, a members-only restaurant in Mayfair, central London. The couple were joined by the chancellor, George Osborne, who was given the additional title of first secretary of state earlier in the day. Cameron was expected to spend the weekend putting the rest of his government together. On Friday, he reappointed Osborne as chancellor, Theresa May as home secretary, Philip Hammond as foreign secretary and Michael Fallon as defence secretary. He is expected to wait until Monday to announce his complete cabinet and to finalise more junior ministerial posts later in the week. The prime minister has a greater scope for patronage among Conservative MPs now that he no longer has to make space in his cabinet for five Liberal Democrat MPs as well as a dozen or more in the lower ministerial ranks. He must draw up a Queen’s speech for the state opening of parliament on 27 May, which is likely to include measures to drive through the £30bn austerity package – including £12bn of welfare cuts – which Osborne says is needed to eliminate the state deficit by 2017/18. Cameron will also seek to press ahead with plans for the renegotiation of Britain’s membership of the European Union in time for an in/out referendum in 2017. |