LONDON — Britain's Labor Party was facing one of its toughest election challenges in a decade today, after voters delivered what is widely seen as a last referendum on Prime Minister Tony Blair's government.
Early returns from Thursday's vote offered few hints of a decisive outcome in a contest likely to determine the future of the Scottish independence movement and provide a window on Britain's political future after Blair.
Nationalist parties were challenging Labor's dominance in its traditional heartlands of Scotland and Wales.
And Labor, which two years ago carried Blair to what he had thought would be a full third term, was also fighting a strong challenge from the Conservative Party for local councils across England.
The Scottish National Party has pledged to hold a referendum on independence by 2010 if it succeeds in dominating the 129-seat Scottish Parliament. But with no party jumping to a clear majority, it appeared that any victor would have to form a coalition government.
The nationalists were trailing Labor in early returns marred by tallying problems in Scotland, yet their trends looked better than those for the governing party, prompting both sides to express optimism.
"There is a wind of change blowing through Scottish politics, that is evident, at least, from the results that we have seen so far," Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond declared early today after he captured a seat held by the center-left Liberal Democrats with 48% of the vote.
Jack McConnell, the Labor first minister in Scotland, said his party's early gains made SNP predictions of victory premature.
"I think that is an indication that the signals in advance of this evening from Alex Salmond that they were on course for a tremendous victory were a little bit presumptuous," he said.
The unpopular Iraq war, sluggish reform of the National Health Service, rising crime among youth and a scandal over peerage appointments have contributed to Labor's troubles, though the party was fighting back, making substantial investments in public services and buoyed by a robust economy.
With incomplete returns, the Conservative Party was slightly ahead of Labor in England, though not in the opposition's key target areas, in the north.
