Joanna Cherry KC loses Edinburgh South West to Labour

Joanna Cherry KC

Ms Cherry, a non-practising member of Arnot Manderson Advocates, said many voters felt that the SNP had “dropped the ball” on the cause of Scottish independence and that the party’s reputation as “strong and competent in government” had taken a “battering”.

Having won 56 out of a possible 59 seats in 2015, the party has now been reduced to only nine MPs at the UK Parliament, though one Scottish constituency has yet to declare.

Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon said that Scottish independence “wasn’t really put front and centre” of the SNP’s campaign, even though it was mentioned on the first line of the first page of the party’s manifesto.

First Minister John Swinney said the party faces a period of “soul searching”.

He said: “Although we’re going to have a bad election result tonight, I still believe in my head and in my heart that Scotland will be better off as an independent country.

“But we’re obviously not winning that argument with the public to make that a priority at this moment, so we’ve got to think long and hard about how we address that question and I don’t think that in the early hours of the morning after a General Election I can give you the definitive answer to what we do in that circumstance.”