The May 7 elections in Wales and Scotland took place in the context of growing disaffection with the existing political process and the cartel-party system, and alongside the local elections in England. In an historic loss for Labour in Wales, Plaid Cymru became the largest party for the first time. In Scotland, the SNP remained the largest party. With Sinn Féin also in government in the north of Ireland, all three devolved administrations are now led by pro-independence parties.

In Wales, Labour ceased to be the largest party in the Senedd for the first time since 1999. The election was held for an expanded 96-member chamber, up from 60, under a fully proportional closed-list system with 16 multi-member constituencies, each electing six Members of the Senedd. Plaid Cymru emerged as the largest party, winning 43 seats, up from 13, with 34% of the vote. Reform UK Wales became the main opposition party, winning 34 seats, up from 2, with 29%. Welsh Labour lost government and was reduced from 29 seats to 9, with 11%. The Conservatives won 7 seats with 11%, the Greens entered the Senedd for the first time with 2 seats with 7%, and the Liberal Democrats remained on 1 seat with 5%.

In Scotland, the SNP remained the largest party in Holyrood, winning 58 seats, down from 64, with 38% of the constituency vote and 27% of the regional vote, falling short of an overall majority. Labour and Reform each won 17 seats, with Reform entering Holyrood as a significant force. The Scottish Greens won a record 15 seats, the Conservatives 12, and the Liberal Democrats 10. Together, the SNP and Greens hold 73 of Holyrood's 129 seats, a clear parliamentary majority for pro-independence parties, with an overall combined vote share around 41%.

The Welsh result is especially significant because of the change to proportional representation, which has allowed the desire for Welsh nation-building to be more clearly expressed in the election. Under the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, such a result was less likely [1]. With PR in place, a party committed to Welsh nationhood is now the largest party in the Senedd and leads the Welsh Government. Nation-building is no longer confined to opposition; the elections reveal that the question is coming to the fore.

The rise of Reform in Britain as a whole and in the nations reflects the broader crisis facing the cartel-party system, which is currently degenerating into warring factions, leading to disengagement and protest voting. The decline in the vote for Labour and the Conservatives across Britain is part of the same trend of decay and fragmentation, with growing disequilibrium. Reform's presence in Welsh and Scottish party politics is part of and reflects this deepening crisis of rejection.

The question is whether the peoples of Wales and Scotland become the authors of their own future. Wales and Scotland are not administrative regions of a British nation. They are nations whose people have the right to determine their own affairs. They require modern sovereign arrangements in which the sovereignty is vested in the people. On that basis, they may choose independence, or they may choose a free and equal union with others. But such a union can only be legitimate if it is voluntary, equal, based on the sovereign will of the peoples concerned, and does not subordinate Wales and Scotland to the existing British state.

The significance of the May 7 elections is therefore not limited to changes in party control. The contradictions of the existing arrangements have been placed more sharply on the agenda, and furthermore, the elections show that the peoples of Wales and Scotland are taking up the question of their nations' futures, in different forms and under different conditions. The old political alignments are weakening. The demand for national renewal is being expressed more sharply.

In Wales in particular, nation-building is no longer officially confined to opposition. The task now is to occupy the space for change and build the movement for modern nation-building, which must involve the people of Scotland and Wales themselves discussing and deciding what kind of nations and arrangements they require. Let the future of Wales and Scotland be decided by the peoples themselves.

Note
[1] In Scotland, the D'Hondt electoral voting system is modified FPTP. It consists of two parts. In the FPTP part, one member of the Scottish parliament is elected per constituency, exactly as in a standard British parliamentary election.
In the second part, constituencies are grouped into regions, and a second ballot paper is provided to elect regional MSPs. On this second paper, the vote is for a party, not for a person. As in the constituency vote, the regional vote is a simple X. The constituency MSPs won by a particular party in a region are discounted, and then the regional MSPs are divided between the parties on a basis broadly proportionate to that vote. It has been pointed out that if a party wins all or most of the constituency MSPs in the region, it is unlikely to get any regional candidates, unless it is polling at over 50%.

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