NICOLA Sturgeon has stopped mentioning a second Scottish independence vote — because the plan bombs with voters.
The SNP leader has switched her message to halting Brexit in a last-ditch bid to woo Remainers.
2
2
It comes despite her manifesto pledge for an independence vote next year.
Scottish Tory boss Jackson Carlaw said: “If the SNP were being honest, their ‘Stop Brexit’ bus would say ‘IndyRef2 — next year’.”
Scotland’s First Minister tweeted the #IndyRef2020 hashtag 21 times in the fortnight before the election campaign began on November 6.
Since then she’s used it just once, on November 14. And in more than 200 press releases issued by the SNP during the campaign there was just one mention of the plan for an indy referendum “next year” or in “2020” — made on November 8.
Meanwhile, Ms Sturgeon has tweeted variations of the “escape Brexit” message 35 times between November 6 and yesterday.
She has more than one million twitter followers. She has also hammered Boris Johnson 36 times in tweets or re-tweets during the campaign.
But there have been no mentions of the word “referendum” in the context of a Scottish vote during the campaign, compared to seven times in the four weeks before the battle started.
Polling guru Professor Sir John Curtice said the tactic “may help the SNP pick up Remain votes in Conservative-SNP marginals”.
Edinburgh University’s Dr Dan Kenealy — an expert on British politics — said: “The SNP don’t want to put off pro-Union pro-Remain voters by overly emphasising IndyRef2. They want to go after the biggest pool of pro-Remain voters that they can.”
Fewer than 1,500 votes separate the parties in six Scots seats, five held by the Tories.
