British Prime Minister Boris Johnson may be celebrating a stunning election victory, but another leader also scored an emphatic win — and it is one that promises to set up a renewed clash over the United Kingdom's future.
The Scottish National Party was on course to take back most of the districts it lost two years ago. Such a dramatic outcome — possibly winning at least 50 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.