THE general election that will be held in Britain on May 7th is so finely balanced that predictions are foolhardy. Save one: the Scottish National Party (SNP) will triumph. And that spells grave danger for the United Kingdom, including—indeed, especially—for Scotland itself.
After failing to win last year’s independence referendum, the SNP might have been expected to collapse. Astonishingly, it has roared back. Through relentless campaigning and exemplary use of social media, the SNP has made fervent supporters out of nationalist sympathisers, many of them working-class Scots who always voted Labour. As a result, it now has 100,000 members from among 5m Scots; the Conservative Party, which draws from all 64m Britons, has only about 150,000. Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader, has been the star of the campaign’s televised debates. Polls suggest that the “Nats” may win as many as 50 of Scotland’s 59 seats in the House of Commons, up from just six in 2010. If (as seems likely) no clear winner emerges, they could well hold the balance of power.
This is a big problem for the Labour Party, and not just because its MPs occupy most of the seats...
from The Economist: Leaders http://ift.tt/1K9bZ4e
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