The Scottish National Party was victorious in the 2007 election to the Scottish Parliament, emerging as the largest party with 47 seats. It narrowly defeated the incumbent Scottish Labour Party, which had 46 seats. The Conservatives won 17 seats, the Lib Dems 16 seats, the Greens 2 seats, and the Independent candidate Margo MacDonald was re-elected. On 16 May 2007, Alex Salmond was elected First Minister by the Parliament and sworn in the next day at the Court of Session in Edinburgh. The SNP went on to win the 2008 Glasgow East by-election and the largest share of the Scottish popular vote in the 2009 European Parliament election. The SNP exploited voter fatigue with Labour - a 2006 poll found 56% Scots believed Labour had been in power in Scotland for too longer, the fallout from the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the power struggle between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown which eroded Labour's popularity. Devolution had clearly become a turning point in the SNP's electoral fortunes, as while it would struggle for relevance in a UK election, the devolved parliament provided the SNP with oxygen it otherwise could not compete with Labour. As all of the SNP's MPs made the switch to the Scottish Parliament while only a handful of Labour MPs followed suit, the clear contrast in commitment to Scotland further the SNP's narrative that it, not Labour, was fighting for Scotland's interests. Salmond became the first pro-independence Scottish leader since the Act of Union of 1707.