The imploding SNP; Nicola Sturgeon is rattled as polls show Scottish Conservatives are making too much headway, 12 SNP seats are at risk as one in three Scots prepare to give Sturgeon a bloody nose over her failures in Government, Brexit and second indyref, the SNP deserve everything that's coming to them

Dear All

Do you remember the SNP tactic at the 2015 Westminster election?

To refresh your memory, the tactic was talk up the Conservative Party in order to crush Scottish Labour, in the hope and knowledge that people would vote SNP.

The tactic worked, Scottish Labour was roundly defeated, left with just a single MP in Scotland, along with a Conservative and a Lib Dem.

Now that Theresa May has called a snap election, it seems that early on the Nationalists were going to trot out the same tactic, after all if it worked once, chances are it could work again. One slight huge problem, Scottish Labour’s polling is dire, the 14%, the mistakes early on, failing to back Corbyn, failing to get the right policies and upping their game is still plaguing the party north of the border.

Scottish Labour isn’t expected to do well; in fact, there is talk that they might get three seats which puts them on course yet again for another electoral disaster. Some people will of course try to win their seats but other people know in their heart of hearts they are just ‘paper candidates’.

They are going to get humped senseless!

Although the press focus on the active election campaign which is called the ‘short campaign’, the real work of building support isn’t done here, the long campaign in an area worked over years is crucial. And as we have painfully seen, in some areas the Labour vote has imploded, especially in places deemed heartlands. Some MPs sat back and didn’t work their areas, now they don’t have an area.

As the election was called, it seemed that Nicola Sturgeon was going with the same old tactic of last time, however, the polls have shifted and now the Conservatives in Scotland are seeing their support rise. Professor John Curtice, the polling expert thinks that the SNP could lose 12 seats to Ruth Davidson’s party. In Scotland there are a million Leave voters who want to see Brexit pushed through, and logically they would want the Conservatives to handle the franchise.

Awhile ago, I blogged that Jeremy Corbyn falls down big time on two issues, defence and foreign affairs, something which the Labour Party needed to address as a priority. Jeremy Corbyn does well on domestic issues, this is his real strength but to get to Number 10, he needs the whole package to work. No one expects the Labour Party to do well; it is reckoned they could be down to 150 seats after the 8th June.

      

In Scotland, if the SNP under Nicola Sturgeon fail to win all previous 56 seats, this will be seen as a personal disaster. It seems that the Nationalists in an attempt to be clever have rather shot themselves in the foot, time will tell. If the Scottish Conservatives do get 12 seats, they will be doing so continuing their message that they are the party of the Union in Scotland. This led to their successful Holyrood campaign which they became the official opposition.

It is looking increasing obvious that Nicola Sturgeon has hit panic mode, there she was babbling about the threat of the Tories as norm, talking them up, only to find that she is actually talking them straight in Westminster at the expense of some of her deadbeats who maybe about to hit the bricks! Now that the expectation of a political gubbing has travelled across brain cell to brain cell, it seems that Sturgeon is now back tracking. This is why she is suggested Theresa May called a snap general election before the alleged Tory expenses fraud in 2015 “catches up with her”.

To be blunt, Nicola Sturgeon is by default now talking up Scottish Labour without actually saying so. 

The alleged Tory expenses fraud in 2015 is in the hands of the Crown Prosecution Service, and they will do what they are going to do in due course. If some people have broken the rules, they will be held to account. This election is not however about this as Nicola Sturgeon wants you to think, it is about Brexit talks, and having the Government in place doing the job so these talks don’t have a distraction of a Westminster election.

Nicola Sturgeon’s speech to the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) in Aviemore in the Highlands is just an attempt to play to the crowd and hype up her party.

Sturgeon said:

“A campaign called by the Prime Minister last week for one purpose and one purpose only: to strengthen the grip of the Tory party and crush dissent and opposition, and to do so before possible criminal prosecutions for alleged expenses fraud at the last general election catches up with her. Whatever else happens in this election, we should not allow the Tory party to escape the accountability for any misdemeanours that may have led to them buying the last general election.”

Rhetoric, but note the use of the word ‘may’, as in she doesn’t have proof.

According to polling one in three Scots is preparing to vote for Ruth Davidson’s resurgent Conservatives, this would unseat a host of SNP big names, people like Pete Wishart who faces a real challenger in the shape of Ian Duncan MEP, who has done a really decent stint at the European Parliament. One other person whose seat is under a bit of pressure is Angus Robertson, the SNP Deputy Leader, him getting put to the sword would be a Portillo moment of the election.

The poll figures have rattled Sturgeon’s cage, as she issued a strongly-worded press release ramping up the SNP’s anti-Conservative rhetoric to a new level.

She said:

“The election in Scotland is a two-horse race between the SNP and hard-line Tories. The Tories have taken an extreme position – demanding an end to any opposition at Westminster if they win the election. The more Tory MPs there are, the heavier the price Scotland will pay. They’re already cutting nearly £3billion from the Scottish budget. They’re hitting family incomes hard by cutting and removing child tax credits. They want to remove Scotland from the European Single Market – which will cost thousands of jobs. They’ve done all this with a small majority. Now they want to crush any opposition. The bigger the Tory majority the more they will think they can do anything to Scotland and get away with it.”

So, this leaves Sturgeon with a real problem, the problem being how does she talk up Scottish Labour as a credible force to try and suck some of the wind out of the Scottish Conservatives?

And without putting any Labour MPs back into Westminster!

Elections are funny; Harold Wilson famously said that a week is a long time in politics, and the 6 weeks till polling day will see Nicola Sturgeon on the back foot. The Scottish Conservatives will have to work really hard, but this is their best chance to crack Westminster.

And as another poll recent showed on Scottish independence voting intention:

Yes: 37% (-4)

No: 55% (+8)

Finally, you can expect the Nationalists to get really nasty in this campaign; being dumped back on the unemployment register is going to put a real kink in some people’s social life.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University