When the BBC announced their exit poll at 10PM last night as polling stations across the country closed, the results they projected were nothing short of a shock. While survey data in the days leading up to the election had predicted that the Conservatives would be the largest party in parliament, nothing had hinted at the size of the lead they now seemingly held.Labour looked fucked. Any chance Ed Milliband had of forming the next government looked negligible, with his primary concern being political survival as Labour leader. If this poll was right, his tenure could only be judged to have been a failure. In fact, it's looking like the Conservatives have done better than that poll suggested.
Annoncering
The biggest story of the night was in Scotland with the SNP set to take nearly every seat north of the border. At the time of writing, the only seat they have failed to gain is Orkney and Shetland – and even there they saw a 24 percent swing. While they might miss out on several others as events progress, they look set to take more than 50 of the nation's 59 seats. To put that in context, they won just six in 2010.And it is there, in Scotland, where the vast majority of Labour's losses have been incurred. Alongside that, they have failed to make any headway in England and Wales. Everyone assumed ex-Lib Dem voters would head for the centre-left embrace of Labour, but many voted Tory. Just as the rising UKIP vote seems to draw upon former Labour voters as much as Conservative ones, so too Liberal Democrats were more right-wing than many previously realised. Those two factor's account for Miliband's night to forget.While in the short-term that bodes well for the Conservatives, and it is they who seem most likely to lead the next government, in the longer-term it means political union between England and Scotland will be put under more stress than ever before. At no point in the history of British democracy have the two nations voted so differently, with the SNP enjoying the most impressive success of any party in the post-war period and all on an anti-austerity ticket that refuses to spend £100 billion on replacing Trident. When you compare that to England, where UKIP and the Conservatives seem to have won around 50 percent of the popular vote between them, its difficult to see how such difference can be reconciled without major constitutional reform. You can't have one nation backing austerity and another panning it without something breaking.While the referendum on Scottish independence was only last year, expect concessions to the SNP of some kind if the Tories are to govern – probably on a major devolution of powers.Just as few rises have been as meteoric as that of the SNP last night, few falls have been as catastrophic as that of the Liberal Democrats. The party won 57 seats in 2010, yet look set to gain only ten this time round. Some of their safest seats in the country have fallen in the process, from Vince Cable to Simon Hughes, Lynn Featherstone and Danny Alexander. Indeed the only real Liberal Democrat of any stature to remain standing, if bloodied, is Nick Clegg who saw his majority in Sheffield Hallam whittled down from 15,000 to 3,000. In a short speech after that victory the deputy Prime Minister strongly hinted that he would resign as leader of the party.While its easy to see tonight as a business-as-usual Tory victory, it is anything but. On the one side are UKIP and the Greens who could see millions of votes ending up with only a handful of seats; on the other is a party, the SNP, which is the greatest democratic challenge to Westminster politics since the electoral success of Sinn Fein in 1918. Yesterday's election was only the start and on the other side of what looks to be days, if not months, of deadlock and negotiation lies electoral and constitutional reform. What, and to whose advantage remains unclear. What we can say, is that from how we vote, to our membership within the EU – even the political union of our country – Britain is likely to look very different in a few years time.@AaronBastani
