Scottish party leaders, candidates, and activists are making their final pitches to voters ahead of the snap summer general election. The First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney, will tell voters on Wednesday that while the election result in England is a “foregone conclusion,” the vote in Scotland is “on a knife-edge.” The SNP leader says Scottish seats could be determined by a handful of votes, emphasizing the importance of every single vote.
The SNP won 48 MPs at the 2019 general election, with Labour keeping just one seat. However, Sir Keir Starmer’s party has high hopes of a Scottish revival. In Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, where the Labour candidate was suspended and stripped of party support, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar rejected calls for his party to back the SNP, ensuring Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross does not win the seat.
Scottish Tory chairman Craig Hoy said several seats across the country would be “extremely close” between his party and the SNP. Failure to vote for the Scottish Conservatives raises the chances of the SNP winning by the back door, he added. Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton warns the NHS in Scotland is “teetering on the brink,” following new statistics showing the highest number of Scottish patients waiting over four hours at accident and emergency since January.
There are 4,081,585 registered voters in Scotland. About a quarter of them, 998,863, are postal voters, but there are concerns that Scots might not get their postal ballots in time to vote. The 4 July election date falls in the first full week of the school summer holidays in most parts of Scotland, with some Scots allegedly being deprived of their right to vote due to pre-planned overseas holidays. First Minister John Swinney wrote a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, blaming his decision to hold the vote on an unsuitable date and the election timetable leaving little space to rectify any problems. The UK Postal Affairs Minister, Kevin Hollinrake, is said to be “urgently investigating” the issue, but the Royal Mail has denied any backlog, saying their service is “not complacent.
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