BY Oladipo Akinkugbe
Mhairi Black, a 20-year-old Scottish student, was elected in Thursday’s general election in the UK to become Britain’s youngest member of parliament since 1667.
Black contested under the Scottish National Party (SNP), representing Paisley and Renfrewshire South in Western Scotland, against Douglas Alexander, the experienced 47-year-old Labour party candidate and former foreign policy spokesman for the party.
Black, who is yet to complete her final exams for a politics degree at Glasgow University, won with a majority of over 5,000 votes.
She benefited from Scottish nationalist sentiment that swept the entire region of Scotland, giving the SNP a landslide victory at the polls with 56 seats at last count out of a possible 59 to make it the third-biggest party in the UK.
The Scottish national party was the force behind the Scottish independence referendum in September 2014, which failed.
After the results were declared, the young MP accepted her victory with magnanimity and incredible maturity, saying: “The fact is that people have woken up to the fact that Westminster has not been serving them and the Labour party has not been serving them.
“Whether you voted for the SNP or not, and whatever your views are on Scotland’s future, I will seek to represent you and everyone in this constituency to the very best of my ability.
“This election is about making the voice of this constituency and the whole of Scotland heard more effectively at Westminster than ever before.
“While I appreciate that this is a blow from Douglas Alexander, I truly hope he will remain to see his future in politics once he has recovered from this result.”
Black was the subject of criticism earlier in the campaign after tweeting about boozy escapades and ill feelings for the Celtic football club in Scotland.
However, it turned out to no effect as Black is now the country’s youngest lawmaker since Christopher Monck, who entered Parliament in 1667 at age 13.
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