LONDON (AA) – U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron has hailed a “realignment” in Scottish politics after his party’s strongest electoral performance in country in more than two decades.
The Conservatives became the second largest party in the Scottish Parliament with 31 seats in the 129-seat chamber. They will form the main opposition to the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), which won 63 seats, just two short of an overall majority.
The result, which saw the Conservatives win more votes than in any Scottish election since 1992, represents a turnaround for a party that was once had no deputies at all in Scotland.
Addressing party workers in the northeastern English town of Peterborough on Friday, Cameron praised the Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson for offering “an alternative to the independence and the separation offered by the Scottish National Party.”
“It’s a great day for our party to see us recovering like this in Scotland and I think it could be a realignment taking place north of the border, which is all to the good of those of us who want to see a strong and successful United Kingdom,” Cameron said in comments broadcast live on television.
The Conservatives failed to make any big gains in regional and local elections elsewhere in England and Wales, although it held on to many of its existing seats.
The center-left Labour Party – the main opposition in the U.K. parliament – suffered losses in the elections, particularly in Scotland where the party fell to third place with 24 seats. But the party won two special elections for vacant seats in the House of Commons and remained the largest party in the Welsh Assembly.
The party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, told party workers in the northern English town of Sheffield that they had defied expectations.
“All across England last night we were getting predictions that we were going to lose councils. We didn’t,” he said in comments broadcast on live television.
“We hung on and we grew support in a lot of places.”
Counting was continuing on Friday for the elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly and the mayor of London.
