Scotland: SNP is on course to win the vote, but how far | Independence News

[ad_1]
Glasgow, Scotland – Talking about Scottish parliamentary elections is not about whether the ruling party will win, but how far.
The Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) has led the Scottish Parliament since 2007 and is on track to secure an unprecedented fourth term on May 6, when Scots go to the polls to elect 129 MPs from a 22-year-old inadequate organization. .
“The constitutional issue still seems to be at the heart of Scottish politics,” former Scottish Labor Party adviser Simon Pia told Al Jazeera, highlighting the polarizing political debate against Scottish independence supporters who believe in Scotland. place for centuries within the unity of the nations of the United Kingdom.
“But [there is] general support as well [SNP] The Scottish government – and critics of the opposition – don’t seem to be cutting things like health and education. “
Polls predict a comfortable victory for the SNP as two close rivals to the party, Scottish Labor and Scottish Conservatives – both pro-union – have given up hope of winning the vote.
Instead, the campaign energies are being focused on trying to get the SNP to get a full majority.
SNP leader and Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who has been head of his party and the Scottish Government for seven years, has called for a recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and another agenda for the independence referendum.
The SNP sees a second historic majority
Scotland voted against independence between 55 and 45 per cent in 2014, but recent polls suggest that the Scottish state supports half of the nation’s electorate, unlike voters in England, who decided to stay in the European Union. 2016 EU Member Referendum.
In its 2021 manifesto, the SNP announced that it “wanted to give the people of Scotland the right to choose our future in an independence referendum … after the immediate COVID crisis.”
A parliamentary majority would allow the SNP to easily win a vote in the Edinburgh parliament by conducting a second independence referendum.
Due to the mixed electoral system of the organization, this has been achieved before ever — in 2011.
The SNP then claimed victory with 69 seats that hacked the system, but 10 years later, another majority remains in its hands.
However, the recent founding of the Alba Party, led by former SNP leader and Prime Minister Alex Salmond, has hampered those efforts.
Alba aims to add to the pro-independence numbers by achieving a so-called “majority” of pro-independence parliamentarians.
Once they were strong friends and allies, the relationship between Sturgeon and Salmond was severely broken, after Salmond was accused of sexually assaulting several women.
He was acquitted by an Edinburgh court last year, but Sturgeon has distanced himself from his former tutor’s new political movement.
Despite moving from Sturgeon’s party to Salmond, most SNP members and politicians have sought to differentiate themselves from the Alba Party, according to opinion polls, they can take one or two seats, thus depriving the SNP of the majority it seeks.
“I totally discuss this [notion] of a ‘supermajority’ – it’s a complete word, ”said Suzanne McLaughlin, who is running as a SNP candidate on the regional parliamentary voting list.
The SNP now has 61 seats and the Scottish Green Party, with five, forms the pro-independence majority in Edinburgh.
McLaughlin told Al Jazeera that having a full majority for his party, or at least a similar majority working with the Greens, would legitimize the SNP’s demands for a second ballot on Scottish independence.
Sturgeon-Johnson confrontation
In the face of the SNP’s wishes, however, there is British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has repeatedly refused to punish another referendum.
Although the Scottish Parliament controls many of Scotland’s internal agendas, the constitution remains the reserve of the UK government London.
The political clash between the two hard-fought prime ministers, center-left Sturgeon and right-wing Conservative Party leader seems to take place after the vote – the sixth such election since the Scottish Parliament was formed in Scotland in 1999. .
“They’ve done a referendum, and they’re not doing another one,” Iain McGill, who has repeatedly defended the Scottish Conservative Party, told Al Jazeera.
“The SNP should be denied a majority that they are looking for.”
McGill argued that the largest party in Scotland was formed in the 2019 general election because the SNP’s electoral power was the only serious option for pro-independence voters.
He said pro-union voters are divided between Scottish Labor, Scottish Conservatives and Scottish Liberal Democrats, and the SNP’s only opponents are the Scottish Greens.
That being said, Johnson now faces allegations of corruption and support for Scottish independence that often coincide with or exceed the Union, and the SNP is on track to win the new mandate.
“Bada [pro-independence] There are numbers then the SNP has the right to seek a referendum, ”Scottish Labor Party Pia said.
[ad_2]
Source link