CAN A WAR-TORN SNP REALLY COME BACK FROM THIS DISASTER?

NICOLA Sturgeon’s once invincible electoral machine is in meltdown at the starting line of a crucial race.

The Scottish Parliament breaks up next Thursday for the beginning of a campaign with the very future of the UK at stake.

At the beginning of the year, the First Minister and the SNP had appeared on course to retain control of the Edinburgh assembly.

But a ruling by MSPs that she misled a parliamentary inquiry probing her handling of sex harassment allegations against her predecessor Alex Salmond leaves her fighting to save her political career. SNP chieftains had planned to focus the campaign on Boris Johnson as a symbol of the supposed need for Scots to break away from the UK.

Instead, Ms Sturgeon’s own character will be thrust into the spotlight as the key question in the campaign.

The ugly clash between the supporters of Ms Sturgeon and Mr Salmond has dispelled the SNP’s carefully crafted image of being a party of patriotic idealists.

Instead, they have been exposed as a ruthless gang of politicians obsessed with preserving their grip on power at any costs. Sturgeon’s downfall appears to be extinguishing the surge in separatists sentiment that has flourished since UK’s 2016 referendum on EU membership.

A poll this week showed 57 per cent of Scots want to “remain” in the UK in a marked turnaround from the slight lead for independence shown in surveys over the last year.That is a welcome boost to this newspaper’s UniteThe Kingdom campaign to keep the UK together.

Yet Ms Sturgeon is a fighter who is digging in against calls for her to quit. Her party, with its emotive nationalist sloganeering, is still capable of proving a formidable force. Scots need to brace themselves for a bloody electoral battle.