Most politicians are having a miserable election, but not so Nicola Sturgeon. Her party is terrifying Labour in Scotland, she has put in very strong performances in the TV debates, and whoever is in government in Westminster from May will face trouble from Sturgeon. The forecasters now put the SNP on course to win between 40 and 50 of Scotland’s 59 seats; Scotland is on the cusp of the sharpest change of political direction in her democratic history.
But in order to sustain that momentum to polling day, Sturgeon needs to reassure nervous former ‘no’ voters who are considering voting SNP in order to exert the sort of left-wing pressure on Labour that Sturgeon promises. So today on Marr, she insisted that a vote for the SNP was not a vote for independence, that the circumstances would have to change significantly before another referendum came up.
But the SNP leader did this while pointedly failing to rule out a second referendum.
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