Conservatives will fight hard for Scotland’s place in the UK
Scots are poised for a de facto ballot on Holyrood’s call for a second independence referendum after the announcement of a general election.
Theresa May and the Conservative Party will fight the forthcoming election campaign hard on Scotland’s place in the UK following the Brexit vote. A majority of Scots voted to Remain in the EU, but the weight of votes south of the Border swung the outcome in favour of Leave.
It shows how the political landscape has altered dramatically in the two years since the last Westminster election, when the SNP swept to a dramatic victory seizing 56 of Scotland’s 59 seats.
One thing which hasn’t changed is that Scotland remains split on the constitution. Support for the UK and opposition to another referendum remains the majority view, albeit slim. This is the issue which will dominate the forthcoming campaign, with the pro-union parties, set to urge voters to use it as a verdict on demands for a second referendum.
Could we even see Labour or the Lib Dems step back from campaigning in some seats, to maximise the prounion vote? In areas like Perthshire, Moray and Aberdeenshire Nationalists will feel under threat after the Tories made major inroads at last year’s Holyrood elec- tion. That could leave senior SNP figures like Westminster leader Angus Robertson and Pete Wishart, chairman of the Scottish affairs select committee, vulnerable to the revival of the Tories. Ruth Davidson has emerged as the official opposition leader in Scotland and a star on the UK political stage.
A significant decline from the SNP’S success two years ago would be seized on by the pro-union parties as evidence that so-called “peak Nat” has passed. But with Nicola Sturgeon poised for another emphatic triumph in next week’s council elections, it would seem that a convincing SNP victory in June seems inevitable.
Whatever opponents may claim, Ms Sturgeon will see this as a “cast iron” mandate to press ahead with the referendum she is determined to hold before Brexit. If UK and global politics have been unpredictable in recent times, then Scottish politics have been positively volcanic.