(Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Boris Johnson may be celebrating a stunning election victory, but another leader also scored an emphatic win -- and it's one that promises to set up a renewed clash over the U.K.'s future.
The Scottish National Party took back most of the districts it lost two years ago. Such a dramatic outcome –- winning 48 of the 59 seats available in Scotland -– will galvanize the party in its pursuit of the independence referendum leader Nicola Sturgeon says is necessary after her country opposed leaving the European Union.
Johnson, like his predecessor Theresa May, has consistently resisted pressure from the SNP-led administration in Edinburgh for another independence vote. But the last one, when Scots chose to stay in the U.K. in 2014, was before the vote to leave the EU. Sturgeon made stopping Brexit and giving Scotland the right to dictate its own future the cornerstone of her party's campaign.
“Johnson has a mandate for Brexit and Sturgeon has a mandate for Scottish independence,” said Simon Hix, professor of political science at the London School of Economics. “We are heading towards a new constitutional crisis, which won't be resolved easily in the next few years.”
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The SNP gained 13 seats, while Johnson's Conservatives lost seven and Labour lost six to hold a solitary district in a country it dominated for most of the postwar period. The SNP held others with increased majorities and even took the seat of Liberal Democrat Party Leader Jo Swinson.
“It shows the divergent paths that Scotland and the rest of the U.K. are on,” Sturgeon told the BBC from Glasgow. “It's still my plan to submit an official request before the end of the year for a new independence referendum.”
In Northern Ireland, pressure is also likely to grow for a referendum on unity with the Republic of Ireland, as nationalists made advances and unionist parties lost their majority.
The SNP's victory was noted elsewhere in Europe, with the head of the separatist administration of Catalonia tweeting his congratulations.
