(Adds analysis, quotes)
* Exit poll suggests SNP will win nearly every Scottish seat
* Clean sweep could revive case for independence
By Angus MacSwan and Alistair Smout
EDINBURGH/GLASGOW, May 7 (Reuters) - Scottish nationalists could take nearly every seat in Scotland but be shut out of any role in the British government, according to an exit poll after voting ended in Britain's national election on Thursday.
The poll for national television stations showed the Scottish National Party (SNP) taking 58 out of the 59 parliamentary seats north of the border.
But Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives were on course to win the most seats in parliament with 316, just shy of an outright majority, with Ed Miliband's Labour Party trailing on 239.
If confirmed, such an outcome would deny the SNP the kingmaker role it had sought in the House of Commons and kill off the prospect of a leftist alliance with Labour to force Cameron out of office.
But it would dramatically highlight the political divide between England and Scotland, and could bolster Scots to push for a new referendum on independence, having narrowly lost one last year.
Commentator Magnus Linklater said: "You are going to get a bunch of SNP MPs going down to Westminster for whom independence is the ultimate goal, and pressure will build up."
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, widely judged to be the star performer of the election campaign even though she was not running for a seat in the London parliament, was wary of the projection.
"I'd treat the exit poll with HUGE caution," she tweeted. "I'm hoping for a good night but I think 58 seats is unlikely!"
SCOTTISH DISENCHANTMENT
The left-of-centre SNP had offered during the campaign to work with Labour in order to shut out the Conservatives and reverse austerity policies. Labour leader Miliband had ruled out a coalition, insisting he could win an outright majority.
Labour finance spokesman Ed Balls said: "We have been warning all along that a vote for the SNP risks the Conservatives coming back into power. I fervently hope that is not going to be the case."
The SNP's surge comes just eight months after the independence vote in which Scots narrowly rejected its call to break away from the United Kingdom.
Since then, however, many Scots have become disillusioned with Labour, which has traditionally been strong in Scotland, seeing it as having moved too far away from the left and closer to Conservative thinking. Some in Scotland deride Labour as "Red Tories".
Promises to devolve more power to Scotland have also gone unfulfilled, leading to a sense of betrayal.