Brexit backlash will give half of Labour’s seats back to SNP
POLL PREDICTS SNAP ELECTION RESULT Scots votes could sink Corbyn
SCOTTISH Labour will lose more than half their MPs to the SNP if Theresa May calls a snap general election over Brexit, according to sophisticated new polling.
The analysis suggests Jeremy Corbyn’s bid to snatch the keys to Downing Street would be derailed by the party shedding four seats to the Nationalists, leaving them with only three MPs in Scotland.
And the Scottish results could play a pivotal role in giving the Tories a working majority at Westminster.
According to the predictions, Labour would lose four Scots seats – Rutherglen and Hamilton, Glasgow North East, Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath and Midlothian – and eight in England and Wales, leaving them with 250 across the UK.
Meanwhile, the SNP’s gains would put them on 39 seats.
The Tories are forecast to win 321 seats, up from 317 at the last election, while the Lib Dems would gain four seats in England to reach a total of 16.
While such a result would leave May short of commanding half of Parliament’s 650 MPs, she could expect a wafer-thin working majority due to the fact that the Speaker and his deputies do not vote and Sinn Fein MPs traditionally don’t take their seats.
If Sinn Fein held on to its seven seats, May could expect a working majority of just one or two in the Commons and would be highly vulnerable to rebellions by backbenchers in her party.
In practice, she might well find herself once more dependent on the votes of the Democratic Unionist Party from Northern Ireland.
The poll of more than 40,000 voters in England, Scotland and Wales used a model of assessing individual constituencies which correctly predicted a hung Parliament in 2017, when most pollsters were forecasting a comfortable Tory victory.
SNP deputy leader Keith Brown said: “People across Scotland will look at the possibility of yet another Tory government with absolute horror.
“That’s down to Jeremy Corbyn’s capitulation over Brexit, with Labour offering only token opposition to Theresa May’s catastrophic approach.
“The only way to guarantee that Scotland stops getting Tory Governments we didn’t vote for is through independence.”
Scottish Conservative chief whip Maurice Golden said: “This is the latest poll showing Labour are a spent force north of the Border.
“The places which Labour claims are its heartlands have turned their back on the party for good. “This reaffirms the point that, in Scotland, it’s a straight fight between the Scottish Conservatives and the SNP.”
A Scottish Labour spokesman said they “don’t comment on polls”, despite the fact the party repeatedly comments on them when it suits them.