THE European Parliament election campaigns of the UK’s political parties have entered their collective endgame ahead of Thursday’s vote.
Polling suggests that traditional parties will be swept aside by the surge of the Brexit Party, who are registering major support down south – but are estimated at only 14% of the vote in Scotland.
Theresa May’s Tories are expected to win just 9% of UK votes. Eating into their voter base is the Brexit Party, which stand at 35%, followed by the LibDems on 16%, Labour on 15% and the Greens on 10%.
However, in Scotland, the momentum of Nigel Farage’s outfit has been kept in check by the SNP.
Alyn Smith, talking to the Sunday National at the SNP EU manifesto launch in Glasgow, spoke of the “great responses” the party have received on doorsteps. This sentiment was echoed by his fellow candidates.
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As it stands, the SNP could still deliver three MEPs to Brussels.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said on Friday that Westminster was in a “dark place,” which placed “an obligation on the SNP ... to provide a beacon of light and hope,” by setting out “a positive, progressive European future for Scotland”.
Meanwhile, a contrasting message was broadcast as May launched the Tory campaign to a near-empty room in Bristol. The PM and her candidates, addressing one reporter, two photographers and two camera operators, offered feeble resistance to the Brexit Party.
“Nigel Farage can’t deliver Brexit,” May said. “Every few years he pops up, he shouts from the sidelines, he doesn’t work constructively in the national interest.
“The Conservative Party didn’t want to be fighting these [elections]. We wanted to be out of the European Union.
“Indeed, if Parliament had backed our Brexit deal, we could already have left the EU, but we’re a national party, we fight national elections.”
Writing in today’s Sunday National, Scottish Brexit Secretary Mike Russell said that the most ardent of Brexit-supporting politicians only did so out of “naked personal ambition or for equally naked financial advantage”, which left the “ordinary citizen – leave or remain supporter – last on the collective Westminster mind”.
READ MORE: Nigel Farage says Scottish independence is 'most dishonest political discourse in the world'
Russell added that with election day fast approaching, the difference between Scotland and the rest of the UK was clear and enhanced by the Scottish Government’s “thoughtful and agile” approach.
In the 2014 election, Scotland voted in two SNP MEPs, two Labour MEPs, one Conservative MEP and one Ukip MEP.
A YouGov poll released last week suggested Labour and the Tories would be wiped out in Scotland, with the Brexit Party gaining two seats and either the Greens or LibDems securing one.
The SNP were forecast to move up to three MEPs.
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