iwillspankyou wrote:Dolan wrote:Cray cray scenario: elections yield a very fragmented parliament and Tories cannot form a majority with only their MPs and those from the Brexit party. None of the major parties can form a coalition. The SNP becomes the playmaker that decides which coalition will rule.
The SNP hate Corbyn, but if Labour can promise them a new Indyref, maybe they can overcome their reluctance to work with Labour. Corbyn said he'd be fine with Indyref2.
I was in the belief that SNP was closer to Labour than they are to the Conservatives? Why do you say they hate Labour? are there any substance to that?
There's always been enmity between the SNP ("Nats" aka Scottish Nationalists) and Labour. It all goes back to 1979, when SNP members of parliament voted to bring down the Labour government, which ushered in Thatcher's rule. Even to this day, Labour keeps accusing Scottish Nats of having helped Tories bring Thatcher to power. At some point they even called Nats "tartan Tories".
The thing is that Scottish Nats (the SNP) and Labour are competing for the same voters. When the SNP's number of votes in Scotland grew, Scottish Labour's votes declined. The SNP has always been seen by Labour as a tricky political opponent, since they couldn't have criticised them by using the same political themes they used against Conservatives, since the SNP also had a progressive, anti-nuclear, pro-immigration agenda. So, in a way, Labour saw in the SNP their own past idealistic, highly motivated avatar, that fought for their own common cause. And how could Labour oppose Scottish independence if that's what "the people" wanted? That's Labour's dilemma, they don't want to be seen as that party which puts itself in the way of what "the people" might choose for the future of Scotland. So they can't really criticise the SNP for clamouring for independence.
The SNP of today keeps criticising and belittling Labour, calling them "London Labour" to dismiss them as a party that doesn't truly represent Scotland, but is just another representative of mainstream, elite, Westminster politics.