Sturgeon: Victory at council elections a vote of confidence for SNP leadership

Nicola Sturgeon has claimed Thursday’s council election results as a “big vote of confident for SNP leadership”.

The First Minister was speaking in Dundee following the vote that returned her party as the largest in Scotland’s local authorities.

The SNP increased their amount of elected councillors by 22 to 453, way ahead of Labour who became the second biggest party with 282.

This is despite being in charge at Holyrood for 15 years and Sturgeon says it was all down to hard work between election campaigns and gaining the public’s trust.

She said: “I am thrilled with outcome of the election for the SNP nationwide. We won the election convincingly, increased our vote share, we have more councillors than we had before, we are the biggest party in more councils than was the case before the election and of course we have a majority here in Dundee.

“That would be a great result for any party at any time, but the SNP is a party 15 years in government so it is a big vote of confidence in the SNP’s leadership of Scotland both nationally and locally.

“I don’t take it for granted though, these election victories don’t happen by accident, they happen because we work really hard, not just at elections but between elections, to make sure we are delivering for people across Scotland.

“And we will continue to do that on the back of this latest election win.”

The SNP are now the largest party in 21 councils throughout the country.

The Tories were the biggest losers of the night with the party losing 63 councillors and falling into third place behind Scottish Labour with 215.

The Lib Dems total number of councillors in Scotland increased by 20 to 87 and the Scottish Greens numbers grew by 16 to 35.