The party
aims to hold the vote within five years. Secession may have implications for
the division of revenues from British North Sea oil and gas fields and for
major firms headquartered in Scotland, such as the Royal Bank of Scotland SNP
leader Alex Salmond was assured of a second consecutive term as Scotland’s
first minister in what he described as an “historic” vote. He had headed a
minority government after a razor-thin win in the last Scottish parliament
polls in 2007.
The new
government’s immediate priority will be to strengthen the Scotland Bill now
going through the British Parliament in London to give more economic powers to
the devolved Scottish assembly, Salmond said.
“We have
a majority of the seats but no monopoly on wisdom and we welcome the support
across the Parliament as we seek to pursue these powers,” he told reporters on
a lawn outside an Edinburgh hotel where he arrived by helicopter.
The SNP
reached an outright majority with 69 seats in the 129-member Parliament, Labour
won 37, the Conservatives 15 and the Liberal Democrats five.
Iain Gray
announced he would stand down as Labour’s Scottish leader later in the year
after his party, traditionally strong in Scotland, lost seats.
The SNP
has long pledged to hold a referendum on Scottish independence. However,
support for ending the 300-year-old union with England is lukewarm among the 5
million Scots.
A survey
by the Scottish Sunday Mail newspaper published last month showed that, while
more Scots wanted a referendum on independence than opposed it, only 33 percent
would back separation from Britain and 43 percent preferred the status quo.
Moreover,
opposition from central government to Scotland’s independence would be fierce,
not least because of its economic consequences.
Official
estimates show that in the three years between 2008 and 2011, the British
government raked in 28.74 billion pounds ($47.10 billion) in revenues from oil
and gas production, the bulk of which is based in the North Sea.
“If they
want to hold a referendum, I will campaign to keep our United Kingdom together
with every single fiber that I have,” British Prime Minister David Cameron told
BBC television.
The SNP
government hit the headlines in 2009 when it freed convicted Lockerbie bomber
Abdel Basset Al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds. Megrahi, believed to be
suffering from terminal cancer, returned to Tripoli and is still alive.
Scotland’s
Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill, who made the decision to release Megrahi,
comfortably retained his parliamentary seat in Edinburgh on Friday.
Since
devolution in 1999, the Edinburgh-based Parliament has taken control of health,
education, the legal system and other issues and is seeking greater financial
independence.
“They
(SNP) have promised a lot in their manifesto and it begs the question of how
they are going to pay for all these things at a time of austerity,” said Tom
Lundberg, politics lecturer at the University of Glasgow.
