Scottish Nationalists Set for Majority at Election, Poll Shows
First Minister John Swinney with the SNP candidate for Edinburgh North Western Lyn Jardine in South Queensferry, Scotland, on Feb. 14.
Photographer: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
The Scottish National Party is heading for a majority in this year’s election, according to a new poll, a result that First Minister John Swinney has said would give his party a mandate for a second referendum on breaking away from the U.K.
Scotland’s governing SNP is seen winning 67 of the devolved Holyrood parliament’s 129 seats on May 7, according to a poll for the Times newspaper by strategy and research company Stonehaven. A party in Scotland has only once before won a majority in Edinburgh under a voting system designed to ensure coalition government — the SNP under Alex Salmond in 2011. That result led to the 2014 independence referendum.