Tribes and turbulence: The 2019 UK general election in Scotland

Abstract

Recent trips to the polls in Scotland seem to evoke a series of binaries: Yes versus No, Remain versus Leave, Indyref versus Brexit, surges and losses. The 2019 UK election is no exception for it allows us to look at simple themes, such as whether the Scottish National Party (SNP) would regain those seats it lost in 2017 and offer more nuanced analysis about the relative importance of different constitutional issues on voter choice. In what follows, we outline the wider political context of the 2019 election, the relevant themes within the campaign and then explore the results, at each point identifying the various challenges facing parties and how they navigated an electorate that now finds itself divided into four tribes: Yes/Remain, Yes/Leave, No/Remain and No/Leave.