Thursday's British parliamentary election delivered several shocking outcomes, including a landslide victory for Prime Minister David Cameron and the Conservatives. But the Scottish National Party's near-sweep of Scotland was nearly as stunning.
Just months after losing the long-awaited Scottish independence referendum, the SNP took 56 of Scotland's 59 seats in the House of Commons and obliterated what was traditionally a stronghold for the Labour Party.
“I am sitting in an SNP stronghold and I couldn’t be happier,” says Scottish comedian Janey Godley, an SNP supporter.
Godley watched the results come in as she was doing a set at The Stand Comedy Club in Edinburgh. She and her daughter, Ashley Storrie, spent the entire night live-streaming their reactions to the results on Periscope, a video streaming service.
“The very first seat we were screaming like we just found out we won the lottery," she remembers. "By seat number 40, we were like 'We can no longer put up that level of enthusiasm.'"
“To see Jim Murphy — the Labour leader who basically ruined the Labour Party in Glasgow — to see him lose his seat was just phenomenal, almost like political porn," Godley says. "I was screaming with happiness."
Godley does admit she's somewhat saddened by Labour's performance, which came up far short of what pre-election polls predicted. “I do feel sorry for them because I’m working class, and it was a working class party,” she says.
Bu even the most dyed-in-the-wool Labour supports ave found themselves voting for the SNP, Godley insists. Take the 80-year-old parents of one of Godley’s good friends; the couple comes come from a mining background and they had voted Labour all of their lives. Yet after the party came out against the independence referendum, they couldn't bring themselves to make their usual choice.
“Labour screwed them," Godley says. "They called me and said, 'Janey, this is possibly our last vote and we’re going out to vote SNP.’ That is incredible that that couple would vote SNP.”
And with the SNP now resurgent and holding almost 10 percent of the new Parliament, Godley thinks another chance at independence will come.
“We will paint a blue cross on our face and we will vote again," she says. "That’s who we are as a nation."
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