British election: Boris Johnson win risks taking ‘united’ out of Kingdom

Boris Johnson has trounced the election, but the results are unsettling for the future of the United Kingdom.

Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon in Glasgow on Thursday. Picture: Getty Images

Boris Johnson has trounced the election, but the results are unsettling for the future of the United Kingdom, with Northern Ireland and Scotland returning nationalist majorities.

Democratic Unionist Party deputy leader Nigel Dodds lost his North Belfast seat in Westminster to Sinn Fein and, coupled with ­another DUP loss in South Belfast, it means there will be more Irish ­nationalists than pro-British unionists for the first time.

This symbolic shift of power, and the fact the Northern Ireland Assembly has not sat for more than a year, has created instability in addition to any Brexit requirements for a Customs border with the Republic of Ireland.

While there is no short-term threat of a poll in Northern Ireland to bring it together with the ­Republic, Mr Johnson will be keen dampen down any Brexit-related turmoil lest it spark fresh nationalist calls.

Mr Dodds’s party colleague in the devolved Northern Ireland Assembly, Edwin Poots, said the ­defeat was very damaging for unionism. “Ultimately, if we are going to protect the union, enhance the union and secure the union, then we’re going to have to have people voting unionist,” Mr Poots told the BBC.

Mr Dodds’s big loss to Sinn Fein’s John Finucane was particularly hard-felt as the seat was once held by Edward Carson, the father of unionism. The Ulster Unionists had swung behind Mr Dodds while the SDLP, Greens and Workers Party all withdrew to support Sinn Fein.

Mr Finucane’s father, Pat, was murdered by loyalist paramilitaries in a notorious incident of the Troubles. “On a night like tonight, when it is all still very surreal, I can’t help but think of my father and where we have come from, not just as a family but as a society as well,’’ he said.

GRAPHIC: Overview of the UK election results

DUP leader Arlene Foster said there were very clear reasons why the DUP lost the two seats. She said pan-nationalism came together to unseat the DUP candidates under the umbrella of Remain. But she insisted the main issue in the election was the return of devolution and re-establishing a Northern Ireland parliament.

‘’People are wanting us all to get back into devolution, and that’s certainly where my focus is next week, and I hope all of the other parties have the same focus to get the assembly and executive back and running again,’’ Ms Foster said.

But in Scotland, independence calls have been made very clearly, and repeatedly.

Nicola Sturgeon was overjoyed as her Scottish National Party ­increased its seats by 13 for a total of 48 and attracting three-quarters of Scotland’s vote.

Ms Sturgeon might have been wishing for a hung parliament so she could insist on a referendum as part of forming a coalition with ­Labour, but she said the magnitude of the SNP result could not be ignored by Mr Johnson.

“There is a mandate now to offer the people of Scotland the choice over our own future,” she told Sky News.

“There is a clear desire and ­endorsement for the notion that Scotland should not be landed with a Boris Johnson government and ripped out of Europe against our own will.

“Boris Johnson may have a mandate to take England out of the European Union.

“He emphatically does not have a mandate to take Scotland out of the European Union. Scotland must have a choice over our own future.”

She pledged to formally request the powers to hold a second independence referendum before the end of the year and refused to discuss the prospect of Mr Johnson rejecting her approach.

In a dramatic moment Ms Sturgeon was seen wildly celebrating when the SNP ousted Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson by 149 votes in East Dunbartonshire.

Ms Sturgeon insisted that the results were a “clear endorsement Scotland should get to decide our future and not have it decided for us”.

Scotland voted 62 per cent to 38 per cent to stay in the EU in the 2016 Brexit referendum but voted to remain as part of the United Kingdom in a 2014 independence vote.

Additional reporting: The Times