A politics expert has predicted that the SNP’s new-found popularity could lead to it holding the balance of power in a hung Westminster parliament next year.
Dr Thomas Lundberg, of Glasgow University. said growing support for the party – its membership has soared by 52,000 to 77,000 in the last two weeks – meant it might win seats currently held by Labour, a feat it achieved in the 2011 Scottish Parliament election.
He said many of the SNP’s new followers would be disillusioned Labour supporters who were particularly unhappy with the party’s allegiance with the Conservatives during the independence referendum campaign.
Dr Lundberg said: “Many of those people (new members) will be disillusioned with Labour and we have seen evidence of people online burning their Labour membership cards.
“There has been a shift to the left for the SNP which means really big problems for Labour and
campaigning so much with the Conservatives isn’t going to do them any favours.”
Dr Lundberg said the intervention of former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown at the tail-end of the campaign might have helped the party a bit, but there would be a “reaction” if Holyrood did not receive significant new powers.
“If there is the possibility of another hung parliament and the SNP took a number of Labour seats they might hold the balance of power and extract concessions for Scotland that we may not see offered otherwise,” he added.
Dr Lundberg said he imagined the SNP would try to “soft peddle” the idea of independence in the near future.
But he warned that it could be problem for Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP’s new leader-in-waiting, because many of the party’s new members “want another referendum tomorrow”.
“The party are going to have to manage expectations but if they can get the message out that we could have significantly more devolution and that may lead to independence then that might placate everyone,” he added.
“Things look really good for the SNP overall, the kind of problems they have are the kind other parties would kill for.
“I think Labour really gets hurts by this and should be worried.”
