Election winners and losers absorb outcome

Party leaders are absorbing the impact of the general election vote as the reality of constituency victories and losses hit home.

Senior nationalists including former first minister Alex Salmond and SNP deputy leader Angus Robertson were among those defeated in the House of Commons as the fallout from the general election result hit home.

The Scottish Tories, however, had their best result in a general election for more than three decades and will parade its newly elected members at an event on Saturday afternoon.

Scottish Labour, Lib Dems and Scottish Conservatives called for the SNP to rule out another independence referendum after it lost 21 Westminster seats.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has conceded her plans for a second vote were ''undoubtedly'' a factor as it saw its vote drop by 13%.

Tory leader Ruth Davidson called for Ms Sturgeon to take a second ballot to be taken ''off the table'' but said Tory support ''fell short of expectations'' and called for ''an open Brexit, not a closed one''.

Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale and Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie, who will parade his party's winners on Sunday, also said plans for another plebiscite must be scrapped.

Ms Sturgeon said: ''Undoubtedly the issue of an independence referendum was a factor in this election result, but I think there were other factors in this election result as well.''

Brexit, a late surge in support for UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and tactical voting were among the other factors Ms Sturgeon cited as having contributed to the result.

SNP seats were lost to the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats - with high-profile casualties including John Nicolson, Mike Weir and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh.

The party was left with 35 MPs and just under 37% of the vote - which was substantially down on the 50% of the vote they secured in 2015 which gave them 56 MPs.

Ms Sturgeon said: ''We will reflect on these results, we will listen to voters and we will consider very carefully the best way forward for Scotland, a way forward that is in the interests of all of Scotland.''

However, she said she would not ''rush to judgments or to decisions'' on referendum plans.

After the Conservatives lost their majority, she said the SNP would ''work with others if at all possible, to keep the Tories out of government''.

She criticised Theresa May, who called a snap election to boost her party's slender majority at Westminster.

The Prime Minister had now ''lost all authority and credibility'', Ms Sturgeon said.

She added: ''The damage the Tories have done to the stability and the reputation of the UK cannot be overstated.

In less than a year they have caused chaos on an industrial scale.''

Ms Sturgeon said the ''reckless Tory pursuit of a hard Brexit must be abandoned'' and appealed to other parties to keep the UK in the European single market.

Ms Davidson said: ''SNP MPs who last night lost their seats have paid the price for what was a massive political miscalculation on Nicola Sturgeon's part.

We have heard the First Minister say she will 'reflect' on the matter. I'm afraid that's not enough.''

She added: ''She must take it off the table.''

Mrs May is now seeking to form a minority government supported by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Ms Davidson added: ''The Prime Minister has made it clear it is her duty to get on with the job in hand and I support all efforts to do so.

But just as the SNP must listen to the result on the independence referendum, we also have to listen to voters who did not give the UK Conservative Party the mandate we sought.''

The Scottish Tory leader, meanwhile, told the BBC she had been given a ''categoric assurance'' by the PM that any Conservative deal with the DUP will not affect LGBTI rights.

She plans to marry her partner in the future, however the DUP opposes same-sex marriage.

Ms Davidson said the UK Government must ''seek to deliver an open Brexit, not a closed one, which puts our country's economic growth first.''

Ms Dugdale called on Ms Sturgeon to ''shelve her plans for a second independence referendum'' and said the PM's decision to call a snap poll had backfired.

''Theresa May has gambled and lost spectacularly, and she should now resign as prime minister - and Ruth Davidson should tell her that,'' she added.

Mr Rennie has said a vote should be held in Holyrood to ''sist, delay and stop'' another referendum in the current parliamentary term.