SNP in Scotland has been a disaster - Sturgeon's crew are sliding into irrelevance - Kwasi Kwarteng

We know that Reform got 5 seats, less than 1 per cent of the total number of seats in the House of Commons, despite winning 14.5 per cent of the vote.

What is less known is the total collapse of the SNP. They now have nine seats. Before the election, they had 48. Their collapse was even more spectacular than the fall of the Conservatives.

How did we expect the SNP to react to this electoral disaster? Contrition? Self-reflection? Remorse? Not a bit of it. They have doubled down with more flag-waving and fantasy.

Nicola Sturgeon gave a prime example of this, when she predicted Scottish independence and a united Ireland, only last week. She was the leader of the SNP in their heyday.

She performed well in the Scottish independence referendum and thought she was on track to be the first Prime Minister of an independent Scotland.

Of course, things didn’t quite work out like that. She and her party are almost back to square one, in terms of seats at Westminster.

Meanwhile, Sturgeon herself and some of her close associates are under an ongoing police investigation regarding the potential embezzlement and misappropriation of party funds.

The SNP, let’s face it, have gone on a wild rollercoaster over the last 14 years. When I first entered the House of Commons in 2010, they only had six MPs.

They were known, I have to confess, more for their social activities than for any serious legislative achievements.

The 2015 general election, coming hot on the heels of the independence referendum, was the high-water mark for the SNP. They carried all before them, winning 56 out of 59 seats in Westminster.

To their friends, the SNP, under their pugnacious leader Nicola Sturgeon, were an exciting new force. To their opponents, the SNP were a narrow, separatist force tainted by corruption and incompetence.

The last few years have suggested that the SNP’s political opponents have had the better run of things.

Firstly, SNP-run Scotland has been a disaster. Scotland’s once famous education system has been diminished, the NHS in Scotland has underperformed its counterparts in England and Wales. Meanwhile, the Scots themselves pay the highest rates of income tax in Britain.

Secondly, the SNP, much like the Tories, one could argue, are exhausted, bereft of ideas, listless and uninspiring. Their politics of separatism and division have borne no fruit in the last few years.

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Thirdly, and this point reflects the other two, there is a strong feeling that the tide in favour of independence has ebbed. It is now in substantial retreat.

There are fashions in politics. Some ideas have their day and then recede back into history. Other ideas come back and revive after many years in the wilderness, so to speak.

Scottish independence, as an idea, feels very 2014. Today the priorities of the Scottish people have moved on. What seemed exciting in 2014, now seems jaded and irrelevant in 2024.

While the police continue their seemingly endless investigation into the party’s finances, the SNP itself is sliding into further irrelevance.

Sturgeon has predicted Scottish independence marking the end of the union after more than 300 years. By contrast, many more people are predicting the end of the SNP as a major political force, only 10 years after the independence referendum.