SNP set to grab 58 of 59 seats as Labour flops

NICOLA Sturgeon today emerged as one of Britain’s most powerful politicians as an SNP ‘tsunami’ put the future of the 300year- old Union between England and Scotland in fresh peril.

A TV exit poll put the nationalists on course to win 58 of Scotland’s 59 seats – wiping out previously impregnable Labour strongholds.

The scale of the nationalist breakthrough appeared unprecedented in recent British politics, though all parties north of the border cautioned against overstating the final SNP tally.

SNP leader Miss Sturgeon tweeted: ‘I’d treat the exit poll with HUGE caution. I’m hoping for a good night but I think 58 seats is unlikely.’

But Alex Salmond, her predecessor as Scotland’s First Minister, declared last night: ‘Our tails are up across the country.’

The result means the political chasm between England and Scotland is wider than ever. While Scotland has enthusiastically embraced the SNP’s Leftwing, anti-austerity politics, English voters rejected Ed Miliband’s similar pitch.

At the last election, the SNP won just six seats, but is now certain to be Westminster’s third force with huge power to collaborate with a Labour opposition to try to block Government legislation.

A final poll by YouGov in Scotland showed the SNP on 48 per cent to Labour’s 28 per cent, meaning several big beasts, including Labour’s election campaign chief Douglas Alexander and its Scottish leader Jim Murphy, were in severe danger of defeat.

High-profile Lib Dem casualties could include Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, former leader Charles Kennedy and business minister Jo Swinson.

Sir Menzies Campbell, the former Lib Dem leader and outgoing Scottish MP, said: ‘It’s a tsunami effect and it’s impossible to imagine how that could have been prevented.’

Labour’s Lord Mandelson said: ‘Something akin to an earthquake has taken place in Scotland … Does it lead to Scotland’s exit from the UK? I very much hope not, but it’s too early to say.’

It will be the first time since 1910 that a nationalist party has held such sway at Westminster. In that year, Irish nationalists won 74 seats, prompting turmoil and the eventual secession of Ireland from the UK.

As First Minister, Miss Sturgeon did not stand as an MP. Meanwhile Mr Salmond appeared confident that he was heading for the Commons in the previously Lib Dem-held seat of Gordon.

Labour strategists privately accepted weeks ago that the loss of a swathe of Scottish seats to the resurgent SNP was likely to cost them any chance of an overall majority. But they were stunned by the apparent scale of its advance in the early hours of this morning.

Miss Sturgeon, given equal billing to the leaders of larger parties in two of the four TV clashes of the election campaign, emerged as its star.

Her approval ratings soared higher than the Westminster leaders and the SNP scored more than 50 per cent of the vote in some polls. She ridiculed Labour leader Mr Miliband’s attempts to rule out a formal deal with the SNP in a hung Parliament – warning he would not get a Budget or Queen’s Speech through without negotiating with her.

Despite that, the Labour bloodbath north of the border will prompt a bitter post-mortem in the party. The remnants of Scottish Labour will be fiercely opposed to the idea of Labour teaming up in Westminster with the SNP’s tartan army.

Miss Sturgeon said yesterday that she believed that Scotland had the chance to ‘ make its voice heard like never before at Westminster’.

Miss Sturgeon has repeatedly refused to rule out holding another referendum on Scottish independence. It is expected that the party will put a commitment to another separation vote in its manifesto for Holyrood elections next May.

POLICE were last night investigating suspected vote-rigging in a key Scottish seat.

Officials confirmed they were probing one possible case of electoral fraud at a polling station in Glasgow East.

They said it related to ‘personification’, where someone fakes their identity, casts a vote, preventing the real voter from marking their ballot paper.

‘A bitter post-mortem’