'Very tough time': John Swinney says sorry to SNP candidates who lost their seats

FIRST Minister John Swinney has apologised to SNP candidates who did not retain their seats in the House of Commons.

At the time of writing, the SNP have just six seats - having been completely wiped out in areas like Glasgow and Edinburgh.

A number of senior Unionists have gained positions at Westminster, including Scotland in Union's Pamela Nash (below) and former Better Together chief Blair McDougall.

READ MORE: Exit poll analysis Scotland: What it means for independence

Swinney admitted the result was “very damaging and tough”.

“I’m very sorry to the colleagues who have lost their seats and will lose their seats in the course of this evening,” he said.

“The SNP has been through a very tough time and part of that tough time is the fact that I am now leading the party and have been doing so for the last eight weeks.

“You don’t recover from those tough times in an instant, and we’ve not managed to recover from them during this election campaign and I’m deeply sorry that that’s the situation that we face.

“But we’ve got to face up to the realities of the situation that we are in and we’ve got to build the trust and the confidence of the public in Scotland.”

(Image: Gordon Terris)

Speaking to the BBC, Swinney also said the SNP are “not winning that argument” on Scottish independence.

“Opinion polls still show that about half the population in Scotland want our country to be independent,” he told the BBC.

READ MORE: All the Scottish seats declared so far – see who your MP is

“That’s not manifested itself in the election result tonight and that’s something we’ve got to look at very carefully as a party and to think about how we can remedy that situation.

“Although we’re going to have a bad election result tonight, I still believe in my head and in my heart that Scotland will be better off as an independent country.

“But we’re obviously not winning that argument with the public to make that a priority at this moment, so we’ve got to think long and hard about how we address that question and I don’t think that in the early hours of the morning after a General Election I can give you the definitive answer to what we do in that circumstance.”

Swinney pledged his party would “carefully examine” what went wrong in the campaign and would “think it through” and “come back and we’ll be open and candid and honest with the public about how we work to rebuild their trust”.