The SNP was caught in a perfect storm which could leave the party with little choice but to kick its independence dream into the long grass.
Nicola Sturgeon’s party has been an insurgent force in UK politics in recent years but found itself outflanked and outgunned on the left by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour, and on the right by Ruth Davidson’s Conservatives.
The first minister’s bold move in March to fire the starting gun on a second independence referendum seemed to have seized the political initiative at the time, but now appears a miscalculation.
Theresa May’s unexpected decision to call a snap election left the party on the back foot and struggling to formulate a coherent message to many voters, while at the same time the Tories seized on opposition to another referendum and used it as a platform for its revival.
The SNP would have been damaged by the surge in support for Ms Davidson’s party, but the impact was magnified by the surprise Corbyn factor, which spilled north of the border, under the radar of most commentators, to squeeze the Nationalists from both sides.
The Liberal Democrats also performed above most expectations in Scotland, leaving the SNP as the only major party in the country to have a bad election, despite winning most seats.
Defeats for key figures such as depute leader Angus Robertson dealt the party its first electoral blow since the independence referendum, and will no doubt cause much soul searching.
The bruising election and loss of momentum also makes the prospect of another independence referendum in the near future far less likely, as the Scottish Government will not call one unless ministers believe they can win it, and opponents will also say it has no mandate anyway.
However, while the scale of the losses were surprising, the only way was down for the SNP after its historic high of 2015, and Ms Sturgeon was quick to highlight this morning that her party was still on course to secure its second best ever Westminster result.
The results also underlined once again, in an unexpected way, that Scottish politics continues to operate within very different parameters from the rest of the UK these days, with dull moments a rarity.