It's rather fitting that the day that marks the passing of a generation since the independence referendum has brought word of what could turn out to be a landmark polling moment that puts the SNP firmly back on track to win a fifth term in power at the Holyrood election of 2026.
Scottish voting intentions for the next UK general election (Opinium, 5th-11th September 2024):
SNP 32%
Labour 25%
Conservatives 14%
Reform UK 11%
Liberal Democrats 8%
Greens 7%
Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:
SNP 32%
Labour 25%
Conservatives 12%
Liberal Democrats 8%
Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:
SNP 30%
Greens 25%
Labour 25%
Conservatives 12%
Liberal Democrats 8%
I know the Green figure on the list looks wildly implausible, and it probably is wrong, but at the moment the only place I can find the Holyrood numbers is on John Curtice's What Scotland Thinks site, and 25% for the Greens is what it says. I can't see any sign of the numbers in the Opinium datasets or on social media, so if anyone can point me in the right direction, please do. It may in reality be a combined figure of 25% for the Greens and the assorted 'others'. But even if that is the case, there doesn't appear to be any reason to doubt that the SNP are several points ahead of Labour across the board, which is an extraordinary achievement at a stage of the electoral cycle when Labour should be still enjoying their honeymoon with the electorate. I've said this before, but if this is as good as it gets for Labour, they've got a major problem on their hands.
So when, you might wonder, was there last a poll as good as this one for the SNP? On paper the answer is as recently as January, when the Ipsos / STV poll gave the SNP a Westminster lead over Labour of 39% to 32%. However, that's not really comparable, because Ipsos telephone polls have tended to be more favourable for both Yes and the SNP than most polls from online firms. For the most recent online poll as good as today's, you'd have to go all the way back to September of last year when another Opinium poll had the SNP nine points clear. And in case you're wondering, it's doubtful that there's an Opinium house effect at play here, because the Opinium poll during the general election campaign had Labour ahead, albeit admittedly not by quite as much as in the election result itself.
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UPDATE: If Wikipedia is to be believed, the What Scotland Thinks version of the numbers is indeed wrong, and the real figures on the list are: SNP 30%, Labour 25%, Reform UK 12%, Conservatives 12%, Greens 8%, Liberal Democrats 8%. It appears that Reform UK also have a remarkable 12% of the constituency vote. That means the seats projection works out as SNP 47, Labour 33, Reform UK 16, Conservatives 16, Greens 9, Liberal Democrats 8. The pro-independence parties would be well short of a majority between them, but it's a struggle to imagine Labour forming a government from such a distant second place. You'd imagine they'd want to limit any full coalition to just themselves and the Liberal Democrats, with the two right-wing unionist parties providing deniable support from outside. But the problem is that a Labour - Lib Dem coalition would still have fewer MSPs than the SNP, so it would just look all wrong and I doubt it would happen in the real world.
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Encouraging.
ReplyDeleteThe other positive in the Opinium poll is on the indy question, putting Yes almost level-pegging with No, as seems to be the case in almost all polls these days.
The tables can be downloaded here https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/indyref-10-years-on/
ReplyDeleteThanks. That seems to be a fuller version from the one I found a couple of hours ago. Opinium does not have the most user-friendly site.
DeleteJohn Swiney steadying the ship.
ReplyDeleteIndeed.
DeleteSwinney is definitely the man to lead the SNP, and in fact the entire Independence movement, through these troubled times.
How got to be a troll post surely?
DeleteHow got to be a troll post surely? - yes you probably are!
DeleteIt's just always seems to be the same Anon posting how wonderfully brilliant John Swinney is. It's way too over the top to be genuine.
DeleteDidn't someone used to publish the same comments about Humza Yusaf when he was FM? Even when he was, to put it charitably, clueless. Surely no generated by an actual human being?
DeleteGrouser
John Swinney would have to find the ship and lift it off the bottom of the sea first.
Deletelabour oct budget - going to be brutal
ReplyDeleteShurrup n vote for the Labour man because SNP bad. Change the record.
DeleteVote Labour so the boss can keep getting freebies. It's the Labour way.
DeleteAnonymous 827 weel said pal
DeleteHere’s a sobering thought for looney tune Nats.
ReplyDeleteThe nationalist share of the vote at the GE was 34%. I think you should brace yourselves for something similar in ‘26.
When will the penny finally drop??
When you relax your sphincter.
DeleteSurely all the NAT vote added up to 100%?
DeleteBrit nat + Scot nat must surely be all there is?
When will the penny drop and you realise that you are a much bigger and nastier type of NAT than us Indy nats for Scotland in Europe?
So all these SNP MSPs and Green MSPs claim they support Scottish independence but not one of them voted for Regan's motion:
ReplyDelete"10 years on from the Scottish independence referendum, the next democratic opportunity must be set, with a commitment to use the Scottish Parliament election list vote as a plebiscite for the people of Scotland to demonstrate their constitutional choice for independence."
The BBC continue to put Sturgeon up on their shows yet never mention she is under investigation for embezzlement. On Reporting Scotland she has the brass neck to say:- " I fervently wish we had made more progress" - no you don't. You wasted the last ten years with superb opportunities for a yes win.
She also said:- " its ultimately for others to judge, not just in the sense of independence......." I judge Sturgeon and her gang as the greatest betrayers of Scotland since the parliamentarians of 1707 who sold out Scotland to England.
And Sturgeon said this:- " I came up against a brick wall of Westminster democracy denial in refusing the right of the Scottish people to choose their own future." You helped built the brick wall by going to the London court. Pathetic stuff from Sturgeon. The so called independence leader who led the independence movement up and down the hill and then ran away - job done- trashed her party and made it illegal for Scots to have a say about their future unless Westminster grants it - which even Keith Brown is now saying Westminster will never grant a sec 30.
It's not democracy denial - Scotland is a colony - until we have independence leaders who will tell the truth and not lies we will get nowhere.
Every time there is a positive set of polling results for Indy, Idiot for Scotland appears with his repetitive anti sturgeon anti SNP crap. The behaviour of a closet unionist. Sad wee man.
DeleteIFS, they voted against Regan’s motion because the idea of a “plebiscite “ election (or indeed a “de facto” referendum) is a piece of pure nonsense.
DeleteDesperation in the knowledge that the games up regarding independence.
My two anon trolls turn up right on cue. The member of Sturgeon's gang and the Britnat troll KC.
DeleteKC who cannae put forward a case for the union. And the anon troll who cannae put forward a case for Sturgeon's gang. This troll lies all the time. There is no correlation between polls and my posts. I've been posting that Sturgeon is a wrong un since 2020 on SGP and I've been proved right. This troll says it's crap and the other troll says it's nonsense. That is the extent of their argument (non argument) and reflects on their limited intellect.
The game is not up for independence KC, far from it. People like you are subservient to your masters in London - like a faithful dog with no freedom is happy with its lot.
Ifs- you are the troll. Still publish your real name not the nonexistent IIS. I hate the previous first minister x2 is so boring. Still the poll is good news for the independence movement I am sure you will agree.
DeleteAnon troll at 10.39am calling me a troll 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. Calling for someone to publish their name is pointless as anyone with a smidgeon of intelligence would realise. James McLaren - there you go you numpty troll. Is that my name? Trolls like you make it all about the poster. Nothing about the actual points posted. That marks you 100% as a troll.
DeleteIf you don’t know your name how will the rest of us know?
DeleteChange the record Idiot for Scotland. Even your wee anon pals don’t bother coming on to defend you now. Get outside in the autumn sun and breath in the air.
DeleteWhy is everybody else " wee " in the world of trolls. This particular troll at 11.55am specialises in telling people what to do. It's all
Delete" jog on " or similar stuff from the book of trolling. A pretty obnoxious individual.
Anon at 11.44am - just a silly comment from someone clearly missing the smidgeon of intelligence.
DeleteIfS is Chris McEleny.
DeleteDoes McEleny live in East Renfrewshire?
DeleteNicola Sturgeon says there is a brick wall in front of independence.
ReplyDeleteKeith Brown says the brick wall is permanent.
Yousaf (the brief) said nothing at all about the wall.
John REDACTOR MAN Swinney says now is not the time to break through the wall. Miraculously like some sort of aging Harry Potter he assures us it will just eventually melt away sometime in the future if we are just patient and get more people to say to pollsters that they want independence. He disnae say how many people or how many years but refers to the 20 year gap between the 1979 Referendum and Holyrood being established.
The gradualists (unionists) in the SNP are in charge. It's the old politician trick of jam tomorrow if you keep voting for us but the jam never appears.
Swinney is reheating Sturgeon's old scam but without the raising 'ring fenced' money part of it - although that may come along once he has steadied the ship.
Vote for politicians who will smash through the brick wall and not for people like Swinney who turn away from the wall and accept Scotland's place as a colony of England.
Alba certainly didn't smash the brick wall.
DeleteAny time the SNP goes up in the polls in comes IfS bot.
DeleteAnon at 11.58am - that is a straightforward lie.
DeleteAnon at 11.53am - true.
You are delusional. Then most Scottish republican Trotskyists socialists are.
ReplyDeleteSpot the Tory !
DeleteAnother poor piece to keep the fruitcake and loons happy.
ReplyDeleteMy anon Troll from Sturgeon's gang seems to think the SNP being 32%, 32% and 30% in this poll is great. That is pure gaslighting. The SNP have been between 45% and 50% for years previously. Basically more closely aligned to the independence vote in polls.
ReplyDeleteThese diddies never ask themselves why the massive drop. They just keep saying everything is fine and you should just wheest for the SNP. They were diddies when they insisted Sturgeon would deliver independence on the 19th Oct 2023 and they are still diddies today.
That type of hysterical shrieking scares off people that we can ill afford to alienate, like Celine Gottwald.
DeleteIFS, have to agree with you. The SNP on 30% or just over isn’t good. It certainly won’t be good if it’s still at that in 18 months time.
DeleteConcerning to see the combined nationalist vote struggle to get to 40%.
That the SNP is leading in the latest polls seems to upset you, IFS. It probably annoys yer china in Bath as well.
DeleteAnon at 3. 13pm - it disnae annoy me in the least. I don't have a china in Bath. Two small sentences both wrong. For the hard of thinking/reading like you what annoys me is Sturgeon's gang betraying Scotland.
DeleteMeanwhile, the Fat Controller has run Alba into the ground and IfS has not a word to say on it. What looked like the only viable pro-independence alternative scuppered by the same tendencies towards nepotism, secrecy and self-aggrandisement that brought low the SNP.
DeleteIt doesn't help that the Fat Controller insists on forcing his rather talentless family members into the limelight. His sister and niece are everywhere you look in Alba. Even the face of the party political broadcast for the last election!
Anon at 3.31pm - I am not an Alba member but I did hope people would vote Alba but they stuck with the Unionist SNP. I am glad I did not join Alba. I voted ISP as they have an abstentionist policy at Westminster. I have no plans to join ISP or any political party.
DeleteJames gives a good running commentary on Alba - what do diddies like you think I should be saying about Alba that James and others haven't covered already.
Quite simply you anon are a real prick telling people what they should post and what they should not post. Not to mention telling people to jog off etc etc.
Well what are you saying about the SNP that hasn’t already been covered a thousand times already? It’s old news, IFS. You’re a broken record stuck on the same tune that finished years ago. The SNP is a busted flush, but continually going over the same old ground is a bit like Labour right wingers who still harp on endlessly about Corbyn. Sturgeon is yesterdays news, IFS,
DeleteAlba is headed in exactly the same direction as the SNP, this time not because of the Sturgeon gang, but because of the gross mismanagement of the Fat Controller and his nepotistic little gang of family members and yes-men.
It’s still a small enough and new enough party that it could viably be rescued from the doldrums that its bumbling, self-absorbed leadership have condemned it to. The SNP has no such luxury. The rot has bedded in with them.
Salmond crashing Alba’s chances at a breakthrough at every turn is the elephant in the room - no pun intended. Independence supporters should be furious at that, as they should be furious at the SNP for their own mismanagement and decline.
He’s all but scuppered any chance of a viable, sensible pro Indy alternative. If you care about independence, you should be furious at that.
Anon at 3.57pm - people like you scuppered things by supporting Sturgeon's gang and that's why you go on and on about it being yesterday's' news. You don't want to face up to your responsibility. It ain't news it is the future of Scotland.
DeleteIt was Sturgeon's gang who tainted Salmond through their criminal plot that scuppered Alba. Again caused directly by people like you who support Sturgeon and her "boys" - Yousaf who disnae like white people and John REDACTOR MAN Swinney.
So I am furious, as you put it, at diddies like you. You are to blame.
'I know the Green figure on the list looks wildly implausible, and it probably is wrong'. As are a few others.
ReplyDeleteThe election 5 weeks ago shows how rubbish polls can be.
ReplyDeleteUm, what election? Are you talking about a cooncil by-election or something?
DeleteReform UK picking up in Scotland as the party reforms its own structures.
ReplyDeleteReform UK isn't a political party, it's a limited company and of little relevance for Scotland.
DeleteIt picked up a lot of support in Scotland already. It is now being changed from the current constitution - did you see the news on that? On Scotland they are majoring on oil.
DeleteSome polls suggest Reform could garner as many as 16 seats in 2026.
DeleteThere would be more Reform UK legislators in Scotland than in any other UK nation.
Delete"Some polls suggest Reform could garner as many as 16 seats in 2026."
DeleteWonder who they'd take those from.