Scotland has just done something that now feels almost radical in UK politics: it produced an election result that actually reflects how people voted. This isn’t via an accident; it has been done by design of the electoral system.
Since its inception, Holyrood has used the Additional Member System (AMS) to elect Members of the Scottish Parliament. Voters get two ballot papers, one for their constituency, which is elected using Westminster’s First Past the Post (FPTP) system, and the other for regional representation, elected using the closed list system. The system is designed to make the final shape of Holyrood broadly mirror the votes cast across the country on the regional ballots.
The results bear this out. The new Holyrood intake looks the way that Scotland voted: there are six parties who will take seats in Edinburgh, many a tight contest on the night, and the parliament is not dominated by one party; it is made up of many.
2026 Holyrood Election Results
As the results show, the SNP are the largest party once again. Their sweep of the constituency seats means that they didn’t need to pick up regional seats. The opposite is true for the Scottish Greens, Scottish Labour, Conservatives and Reform UK, who didn’t do so well in the constituencies and needed regional representation to make their share of MSPs closer to their share of the vote.
As is the norm for the Scottish Parliament, no majority was received by any one party. As a result, it is likely that the SNP will install a minority government and continuously work with opposition MSPs from the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, Scottish Greens, and potentially even the Conservatives to pass key bills.
What if Scotland had First Past the Post?
Scotland’s parliament may not be perfectly proportional, but it is no way near recent results from Westminster. If the result were decided only using Westminster’s First Past the Post voting system, the SNP would have a huge parliamentary majority. Not because the majority of Scottish voters voted for them but because First Past the Post rewards coming first in enough places rather than winning overall support.
The SNP won 38.2% of the constituency votes, and 78% of constituency seats.
The consequences of this system are playing out in front of us. In Westminster, the Labour government in 2024 received two thirds of the parliamentary seats on only a third of the national vote share. Millions of voters were left without meaningful representation.
Although AMS doesn’t eliminate these distorted results entirely – two thirds of the seats at Holyrood are still elected using First Past the Post – but the regional lists act as shock absorbers for these random results produced under First Past the Post.
Minority government is the system working
As mentioned, having ‘no clear majority’ is something not easily understood in Westminster but in Scotland – and Wales – it is the norm. This is because proportional voting systems do not gloss over reality and pretend that the general public are entirely unified in their political opinions.
As Holyrood uses a system that accurately reflects the way people vote, coalition and cooperation agreements in Edinburgh are the norm, and the result is a different kind of politics. Leaders are expected to work with their colleagues across the political spectrum. They negotiate and build agreement.
When compared to the government in Westminster, the difference is noticeable. Whilst the Labour Party won a huge majority, they have always struggled with legitimacy because they did not possess the support of the majority of the nation.
England’s growing mismatch
These results in Scotland are all the more important now as England is changing. The two-party system no longer exists, five-party politics looks to be there to stay. However, the voting system hasn’t caught up.
If we refuse to recognise that First Past the Post cannot keep up with these changes in voting patterns then our parliaments in Westminster will be even more random and governments will rely on even smaller shares of the vote and be even more fragile.
Scotland sets a different standard; voters have a range of views, and their government reflects that diverse range. The responsibility is on the politicians to work together in the best interests of the entire population, not to play one part of the country off another or claim a mandate that was never actually given.
Scotland’s system isn’t perfect, but it is recognisably fairer than Westminster’s.
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