On Monday, June 8th, the First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon discussed the Scottish National Party’s election victories and reasons for wanting independence from the U.K.
Wikipedia states:
“Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon (born 19 July 1970) is the fifth and current First Minister of Scotland and the Leader of the Scottish National Party, in office since 2014. She is the first woman to hold either position. Sturgeon represents Glasgow Southside as its MSP.” (Member of the Scottish Parliament – ed.).
“A law graduate of the University of Glasgow, Sturgeon worked as a solicitor in Glasgow. She was first elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999, and served successively as the SNP’s shadow minister for education, health and justice. In 2004, she announced that she would stand as a candidate for the leadership of the SNP following the resignation of John Swinney. However, she later withdrew from the contest in favour of Alex Salmond, standing instead as depute (deputy) leader on a joint ticket with Salmond.”
According to the British newspaper The Guardian, an election campaign rally attended by the Leader of the Labour Party in Scotland, Jim Murphy, and the Labour-supporting comedian Eddie Izzard, had to be abandoned after they were ambushed and heckled by Scottish Independence activists.
“Amid scuffles, involving a handful of protesters and party members, Murphy and Izzard were forced to abandon an open-air rally and interviews with the media on Buchanan Street in central Glasgow, before driving away,” writes The Guardian.
Several protesters who had been waiting with a banner reading “Red Tories Out” began playing music and heckling with a bullhorn after the Labour pair arrived with supporters at about 11am.
Oddly enough, Labour is also anti-Tory. However, Scotland has its own party, the SNP. Nicola Sturgeon is the Leader of the SNP.
Sources state that the Scottish National Party (SNP) could change the outcome of the election in the U.K., depending on whether a coalition is formed between the SNP and one of the larger parties, like The Labour Party or The Conservative Party.
Piers Morgan, writing for The Daily Mail:
“…(N)either of the two main parties has a hope in hell of winning an overall majority at the general election.”
So one of the bigger parties will need to form a “coalition” with a smaller party to form a working majority to rule the country. The SNP is supposedly the most powerful small party.
The problem is that the SNP wants independence for Scotland. So a party that forms a coalition with the SNP will be working with a party that wants to break away from the U.K.
“So they will have to take a begging bowl to one of the smaller parties to do a deal that allows them to form a ‘coalition’ government. The biggest ‘smaller’ party will almost certainly be the SNP, who should end up with 40-50 seats in Parliament, having pretty much wiped out the socialist Labour party in that country, which used to be considered its heartland,” writes Piers Morgan.
The Labour Party’s leader, Ed Miliband, has accused David Cameron (Conservative) of “demeaning his office” and putting the UK’s future at risk as a fight over the SNP’s future role intensifies, according to the BBC.
Miliband said Mr. Cameron, who has warned of the dangers of a Labour-SNP coalition, should be “taking on the nationalists” not “talking them up,” states the BBC. He suggested other Conservatives were “ashamed” of their election strategy.
However, Labour has said the Conservatives were “talking up” the threat of the SNP for their own political interests.
But former Prime Minister Sir John Major said the SNP could “blackmail” a future Labour government.
The Conservatives have continued their warnings about the SNP’s likely influence on a minority Labour government in the event of a hung Parliament, with the former Conservative leader claiming it would be a “recipe for mayhem”.
The SNP has said it does not want to form a coalition with the Conservatives, but is interested in one with Labour.
Conservative David Cameron has stated that a Conservative government would honor Scottish devolution (granting Scotland more autonomy), but he wants to “ensure the rest of the UK will not ‘lose out.'”
Below is a BBC interview with the head of the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon.
OK, Fine. 