ANKARA
The Scottish National Party is on course to win every seat in Scotland in the U.K.’s general election next week, according to a poll released Wednesday.
The Ipsos Mori poll, conducted for Scottish television channel STV News, gave the SNP 54 percent support in Scotland – a 34-point lead over their main rivals, the center-left main opposition Labour Party.
According to predication, by the Electoral Calculus website, the SNP would win all 59 seats in Scotland on a uniform swing, with Labour losing all 41 seats it won in 2010.
“Forget polls - only votes win elections. The more seats the SNP win, the stronger Scotland will be. Let's keep working hard,” SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon tweeted, acutely aware that such a mammoth lead could soften the resolve of SNP supporters to come out and vote.
The Scottish National Party is a left-wing separatist party whose popularity has risen exponentially in Scotland after a defeated independence referendum on Sept. 18 last year.
“This election is not about a referendum on independence,” Sturgeon told BBC Radio 4 last week.
“Even if we won every seat in Scotland, that would not be a mandate for a referendum,” she said somewhat presciently considering Wednesday’s poll.
David Cowling, head of BBC Political Research, doubted Sturgeon’s claims.
“If every single Scottish constituency voted SNP then Ms Sturgeon would be bound to say, 'Look, we've got to talk about independence again,'" he told the BBC on Wednesday.
The SNP’s rise threatens the ability of the Labour Party to form a majority government after next week's election.
“We’re behind in the polls, there’s no point in denying that,” Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy said at a campaign event in Glasgow.
Murphy previously accused the SNP of being Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron’s “little helpers” by undermining support for Labour in its traditional Scottish heartland.
“If this poll is repeated on polling day, David Cameron will be uncorking the champagne because he might cling onto power," he said Wednesday. "Not because Scotland went out and voted Tory (Conservative), but because Scotland voted against the Labour party and made sure David Cameron was leader of the largest party.”
The prospect of a minority Labour government propped up by Scottish nationalists has become the focus of the ruling center-right Conservative Party’s campaign.
“The numbers are clear: (Labour leader) Ed Miliband cannot possibly govern without the SNP propping him up,” Conservative defense minister Michael Fallon said Wednesday. “Nicola Sturgeon would hold him to ransom.”
