Voters may punish Blair in last poll test

By Katherine Baldwin

ABERDEEN (Reuters) - Voters were expected to punish Prime Minister Tony Blair over the Iraq war and political scandals in an election that could bring a pro-independence party to power in Scotland.

Blair, facing his last election before he steps down after a decade in power, could see his Labour Party suffer heavy losses in Thursday's elections to local councils, the Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly, commentators said.

After polls closed at 10 p.m. politicians awaited the first results from Scotland, where opinion polls suggest the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) could oust Labour as the biggest party in the Scottish parliament, ending 50 years of Labour dominance in Scotland.

SNP leader Alex Salmond has pledged to hold a referendum on Scottish independence from Britain in 2010 if his party wins.

"We're on a historic night. For the first time in 50 years, the Labour Party just may have lost control as the largest dominating party of Scotland," Salmond told the BBC just after the polls closed and before any results were in.

A SNP victory in Scotland would be a severe blow for Blair, who is expected to announce next week he will leave office by July, and for Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, the Scot who is almost certain to succeed him.

"Labour needs a good kicking. They are too proud, they've been in too long and they think they can't do any wrong," said John Fraser, 71, who runs a Christian community centre in the northern Scottish city of Aberdeen.

Labour backs England's 300-year-old union with Scotland and had hoped to defuse independence calls by setting up Edinburgh's parliament in 1999 with limited powers over Scottish affairs.