Alex Cole-Hamilton: Pro-indy parties 'gamed the system' at 2026 Holyrood election
The Scottish Lib Dems have long called for electoral reform, and say the flaws in the system allowed the SNP to win a fifth term in office
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has said pro-independence parties were able to “game the system” to win a majority at the Holyrood election.
On May 7 the SNP won a historic fifth term in office after winning 58 seats.
While they fell short of the 65 seats needed for an outright majority, the success of the Scottish Greens winning a remarkable 15 seats means there is now a pro-independence majority in the Scottish Parliament.
Mr Cole-Hamilton, who received the highest number of votes of any MSP at the election last month, said the voting system needs urgent reform due to the SNP’s “unrepresentative” victory.
He made the comments at the Scotland 2050 conference in Edinburgh, sponsored by The Scotsman, where he also said Scotland is being failed by bad opposition.
Mr Cole-Hamilton said: “The Lib Dems stopped an SNP majority, but they should never have been anywhere near a majority.
“They got 38 per cent of the constituency vote and 27 per cent on the list - the SNP demonstrably went backwards.
“Pro-independence parties gamed the system to get an unrepresentative majority of seats on around 40 per cent of the vote combined.
“That impossibility fundamentally demonstrates the flaws in our electoral system.”
The Lib Dems have long called for electoral reform in favour of proportional representation. During his conference speech, Mr Cole-Hamilton highlighted the benefits of the single transferable vote system, which is used in local council elections in Scotland.
He also criticised the other opposition parties in Scotland, saying the public “deserves better”.
The Scottish Lib Dem leader said: “I look back at some of the scrapes I’ve had with people online and I’m embarrassed that for too many in parliament and in wider Scottish politics that’s still the game.
“That’s their bread and butter, jumping on every bandwagon, picking fights for the sake of it, sending out angry press releases without ever getting anything done.
“I think Scotland deserves better than that.”
He said an example of this is when other opposition parties assumed the Lib Dems would oppose Kate Forbes’s appointment as deputy first minister to give the SNP “another bloody nose”. He said his party did not oppose the appointment as they believed she “deserved a chance”.
Mr Cole-Hamilton said: “Strong opposition is intelligent, measured criticism and scrutiny, and at times thoughtful cooperation where we can find common ground.
“That’s how you get things done.
“Scotland has been poorly served by this SNP government, of that there is no doubt, but it has also been poorly served by the big opposition parties as well.”
Scottish Labour and Reform UK are now the joint second biggest parties in Holyrood on 17 seats each. While Mr Cole-Hamilton said he is “personally gutted” for Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, he believes all 17 Reform MSPs will not last the full five-year parliamentary term.
He said: “I’m waiting for them to show up. They’ve been quite timid, I’m quite surprised.
“I’m chalking a lot of this up to the fact that they’re quite new.
“They’re not being called to speak regularly and when they do speak, they’re waging war on their particular hobby or moral culture, but not with any real fire and brimstone.
“They’re a very disparate group of people and I’d be surprised if they survived this parliament intact as a group of 17.”
He added: “They underestimate the people of Scotland because they don’t recognise this country for the tolerant place it is and they will ultimately fail - they will be found out.”
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