Cameron sweeps to unexpected triumph in British election

(Agencies) Updated: 2015-05-08 17:29

SCOTTISH "TSUNAMI"

With almost all of Scotland's 59 parliamentary seats counted, the Scottish National Party (SNP) had won 56 of them, up from just six five years ago, all but obliterating Labour in one of its historic strongholds.

"We're seeing an electoral tsunami on a gigantic scale," said Alex Salmond, the party's former leader, now elected to represent it in parliament in London.

"The SNP are going to be impossible to ignore and very difficult to stop," he said, saying such a result would strip Cameron of any legitimacy in Scotland where his Conservative Party would have only one lawmaker.

The United Kingdom includes England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. England makes up 85 percent of the population but Scottish politicians elected to parliament in London have historically held important government posts. That will now be impossible with the SNP holding nearly all Scottish seats.

In a body blow to Labour, Douglas Alexander, the party's campaign chief and foreign policy spokesman, lost his seat to a 20-year-old Scottish nationalist student. Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy was also toppled.

Labour's Miliband is widely expected to resign in the wake of his defeat. A North London Socialist and self-described "geek" who never quite connected with working-class voters, he ran a campaign that was widely seen as better than expected, but was always far behind Cameron in polls that asked voters who they saw as a more credible leader.

"This has clearly been a very disappointing and difficult night for the Labour Party," he told supporters after retaining his own parliamentary seat in Doncaster, northern England.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg is also expected to resign, after seeing the party humiliated as a response to his decision to join the Conservatives in government five years ago and abandon high profile election pledges.

He won his own seat but called it a "cruel and punishing" night.

The UK Independence Party, which wants an immediate British withdrawal from the EU, was on track to get two seats at best amid speculation that Nigel Farage, its leader, would fail to be elected and therefore have to step down.

The party easily secured the third most votes, but could not translate this to many seats under Britain's system, in which candidates stand for seats in individual districts and a party's overall vote tally is meaningless.

One other loser is the opinion polling industry which is likely to face an inquest over its failure to predict the outcome. Before the election, virtually all opinion polls had shown the Conservatives and Labour neck-and-neck.