Sturgeon dismisses SNP landslide a mandate for independence vote

The Scottish National party's unprecedented election victory on Thursday raised a pressing question: would SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon use her new battalion of Westminster MPs as shock troops for a fresh push to leave the Union?

Ms Sturgeon's predecessor Alex Salmond declared that the Scottish lion had "roared", but the current first minister was clear that the result was not a bellow for independence.

Ms Sturgeon on Friday dismissed suggestions the SNP landslide offered a mandate for another independence referendum, calling it instead "a vote to make Scotland's voice heard loudly" in Westminster. She did, suggest, however, that the issue might return to the agenda in next year's Scottish parliament election.

In the short term, a Conservative majority government has rendered obsolete the SNP's pre-election talk of using expanded influence to help "lock the Tories out of office" and inject "backbone and guts" into a minority Labour administration.

"In reality she doesn't have an awful lot of clout - that anti-Tory majority she talked about in the campaign crumbled with the first exit poll," says David Torrance, author of an unauthorised biography of Ms Sturgeon.

The SNP will have to think carefully to decide what role its 56 MPs should try to play in the 650-seat House of Commons, particularly since it has ruled out any deals with the Conservatives, says Michael Keating of Aberdeen university.

"The Tories are not going to have to pay any attention to them," Prof Keating says.

Few expect Ms Sturgeon to pursue aggressively the most ambitious element of its election manifesto: full fiscal autonomy, under which Scotland would take control of all tax raising, transferring some funds to the UK government for shared costs such as defence and debt service.

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"They are not going to push this until they know that: A. the public will support it and B. that it can be done without damaging Scotland's finances," says Craig McAngus, research fellow at the Centre on Constitutional Change.

The SNP will certainly be able to make a lot of noise in Westminster as the third biggest party - not least through a vastly expanded presence on powerful Commons committees - and it would be unwise for the UK establishment to imagine that it can ignore the Scottish political earthquake.

In the hours after her triumph, Ms Sturgeon said a top priority would be the cause of "ending austerity", alongside pushing for a bolder devolution of powers for Scotland than has already been promised as part of a package brokered by Lord Smith of Kelvin last year.

"We want to see powers over business taxes, employment and welfare devolved to Scotland," the first minister told the BBC.

A Conservative rebuff to such demands would be likely to fuel support for the SNP and reinforce Nationalist claims that Scotland and England are diverging politically. The SNP is also likely to increasingly seek to question the "legitimacy" of a Tory government "imposing" austerity or new nuclear weapons on Scotland.

The result is a political sweet-spot for the Nationalists in the run-up to next year's Scottish parliamentary election, which it is now expected to win at a romp. "The bogeymen are all in place . . . will clean up," says Mr Torrance.

SNP strategists say continued government is a key part of their push toward independence, with Ms Sturgeon keeping her options open on whether to include a call for a referendum in the party's manifesto next year.

<>Plenty of potential pitfalls are also ahead, however. Election success itself means a host of inexperience and untried MPs, with all the reputational risk that brings. The need to maintain an image for governing competence among Scottish voters means the SNP as good reason to want to be seen to live up to its promise to play a "constructive role" in Westminster.

The 50 per cent of the Scottish electorate who voted SNP on Thursday included many who voted No to independence last year as well as moderate Yes voters who would look askance at the party if it seemed to be undermining UK government stability.

The SNP may also have to deal with tensions over how quickly it should push for a new independence referendum.

While Ms Sturgeon is generally a cautious leader likely to resist pressure for a new vote if there is any chance that it might not pass, Mr McAngus says many members are likely to want to move more quickly. But he says Ms Sturgeon will be able to keep any independence radicals in check for some time.

"Her stock has never been higher - her authority in the party will be unquestioned for a while," he says.

Whether the new parliament marks a step toward Scottish independence may be decided more by David Cameron, the prime minister, than Ms Sturgeon.

During the election campaign, even some senior Conservatives were outraged by Tory posters portraying Alex Salmond as a pickpocket and crude rhetoric including warnings from Boris Johnson of a looming "Ajockalpse". Such messages may have shored up Tory support in England but were unlikely to cultivate common feeling north and south of the border.

"In the campaign, the Conservatives seemed to cast doubt on the legitimacy of SNP MPs," says Nicola McEwen of Edinburgh university. "It would be an incredibly high risk strategy for the future of the UK if they were to carry this stance into government."

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