AFTER his convincing election win, I congratulate and look forward to working with Douglas Alexander as Holyrood and Westminster co-operate in addressing constituents’ priorities.

I wish him well representing East Lothian and trust he will, as a business minister, deliver promised economic growth for the county.

Prime Minister Starmer’s meeting with First Minister Swinney helps to reset engagement with the UK Government after five years of utter chaos. Commiserations are also due to Lyn Jardine, who stepped up at short notice to lead an energetic SNP campaign with unwavering commitment.

I commend East Lothian’s voters for one of Scotland’s highest turnouts, four per cent above the UK’s average, which was the second lowest since 1885. It takes nothing away from Mr Alexander’s victory, nor does it minimise the SNP’s losses, to analyse an election which delivered the emphatic referendum on failure the Tories feared, but not the tsunami of enthusiasm Labour anticipated.

Labour’s ‘landslide’ rests on 34 per cent of the vote, not matching the 40 per cent achieved by Jeremy Corbyn in 2017, and not much greater than the SNP’s 30 per cent of the vote.

Scottish Tories voting Labour to block the SNP have increased Starmer’s huge majority.

Independence supporters similarly using Labour to eject a dysfunctional Tory Government have left Scotland’s independent voice vastly outnumbered by MPs who’ll never ‘put Scotland first’.

The SNP defeated the Scottish Tory leader, seeing Douglas Ross’s party overtaken by the Lib Dems as Scotland’s third-largest party at Westminster. Both Reform UK and the Greens were disadvantaged by Westminster’s ‘winner-takes-all’ format, while voters dismissed Alba with a derisory vote.

First-past-the-post worked to the SNP’s unprecedented advantage in 2015. In 2024, however, an average vote of 23,024 votes elected each Scottish Labour MP but a massive three-quarters of a million votes elected just nine SNP MPs – an average of 80,528 votes per seat.

The outcomes above reflect a flawed, antiquated voting system. According to the Electoral Reform Society: “Tactical voting is a morbid symptom of the distorting Westminster elections that often force people to vote for the least-worst option rather than for a vision of the country they want to live in.”

The SNP’s vision has at its heart equality; the eradication of poverty; eliminating nuclear weapons; achieving net zero; and aiming for prosperity and independence in Europe. For the first time since 2011, a majority of voters didn’t support these aspirations and the SNP recognises that judgment. We’re reflecting hard on why we fell short and focusing on rebuilding the most precious foundation of democracy: the confidence and trust of voters.