Labour slip to third place in Scotland in historic YouGov poll

I spoke too soon yesterday afternoon when I pointed out that not a single Scottish Parliament election poll had yet shown the Tories in second place.  Right on cue, here is YouGov's first Scottish poll for several months -

Constituency ballot :

SNP 50% (-1)
Conservatives 20% (+1)
Labour 19% (-2)
Liberal Democrats 6% (+1)

Regional list ballot :

SNP 42% (-3)
Conservatives 20% (+1)
Labour 20% (n/c)
Greens 6% (n/c)
Liberal Democrats 5% (n/c)
UKIP 3% (n/c)
SSP 2% (-1)

I suppose the obvious question to pose at a moment like now is : how much of this is the Tories doing comparatively well, and how much of it is just Labour doing appallingly, mind-bogglingly badly?  Obviously there was always a chance that Labour could eventually shed so much support that the Tories would 'overtake' them by default, but there's a bit more to it than that.  The Tories' 20% share is actually well within the margin of error of what they've been receiving with YouGov since the UK general election - if you imagine their true level of support is around 19%, it could be that they haven't gained any support at all over the last few months, and that the small changes shown by YouGov have just been margin of error noise.  But in the crucial period between the independence referendum and the general election, YouGov had them in a range between 12% and 16%, so clearly something has happened since then.  Some of the movement can perhaps be explained by Tory-friendly methodological tweaks, but it's unlikely that all of it can be.

I think the most plausible explanation is that the massive 'first wave' of voter desertion from Labour in the immediate wake of the referendum (largely left-leaning Yes supporters switching direct to the SNP), has been followed since the general election by a smaller 'second wave' of desertions, this time mostly centre-right and centrist unionists.  It's unlikely that these people are typically lifelong Labour voters - many of them may well be 'Murphy Labourites', ie. converts from the Tories and the Lib Dems who liked Scottish Labour's rightward and militant unionist drift, and saw the party as a bulwark against the SNP tide.  It's not hard to understand why they would be having second thoughts now - Labour no longer even present the illusion of being a remotely credible opposition to the SNP, Jackanory Jim has ceased to be Scottish Labour leader, and at UK level the party is for the time being in the hands of the radical left.

YouGov have joined Panelbase in showing Labour on an all-time low, which means the balance of probability must be that the party has genuinely suffered further losses fairly recently.  However, the jury is still out on that, because yesterday's TNS poll actually showed a small rise in Labour's constituency vote (albeit well within the margin of error).  It's also worth noting that this isn't Labour's first sub-20 showing on the constituency ballot across all firms - TNS also had them on 19% in the first post-election poll last spring.

I should point out that, although I now accept there is a genuine chance of the Tories finishing second in May, I still think it's pretty unlikely.  Since the general election, YouGov have emerged as the most Tory-friendly pollster in Scotland, and it could be that this is as good as it'll ever get for Ruth Davidson.  But if the unthinkable does happen, what would be the implications?  We've assumed that another Labour calamity is already factored in as far as most commentators are concerned, thus protecting both Kezia Dugdale and Jeremy Corbyn from any fallout from the result.  But third place isn't part of the script we've been rehearsing.  Dugdale might end up departing the stage, and we'd have to see whether Sadiq Khan's likely victory in the London mayoral election would be enough to insulate Corbyn from the impact of the Scottish result.  (Given the London-centric nature of the "UK media", it might well be.)

There might also be a subtle change in media reporting of devolved politics.  As we all know, much of the Scottish media tends to follow a Labour press release agenda, which they can get away with due to Labour being the nominal 'alternative government'.  If the SNP and the Tories are the two largest parties, it'll be harder to do that.  The media framing may switch to a left-wing SNP government being challenged by the Tories from the right, in which case the 'cultural hold-outs' in the rump Labour support (people who carry on voting Labour because their faether did and his faether before him) may start to wonder why they're voting for an irrelevant party.

That said, politics in the western world has become much more fluid.  We thought that the Canadian Liberals had become an irrelevance when they were replaced as the official opposition by the NDP, but all it took to get them back into government in one jump was a charismatic leader.  So it would be premature to assume that a third-place finish for Labour would inevitably be the end of the road.

The SNP's showing in this poll is on the 'low' side, although it's within their normal post-referendum range with YouGov - they've been as low as 42% on the list before, and they've been lower than 50% on the constituency vote on three occasions.  But it's going to be murderously hard for the smaller parties and their cheerleaders to claim with a straight face that the SNP's overall majority isn't under threat on these figures, and that SNP supporters have some kind of 'free hit' on the list vote.  Nicola Sturgeon is only polling 5% better on the constituency vote than Alex Salmond managed in 2011, when of course the SNP were well short of winning a majority on constituency seats alone.  If list seats are required to retain the majority, the bad news is that this poll suggests the SNP's list vote is on course to fall from the 44% received in 2011.  The good news is that past history suggests that the gap between the constituency and list votes is likely to be much smaller than polling implies, because an aggressive two-vote strategy can help voters understand that the list vote is not a second preference or 'bonus' vote.

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SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS

For now I can only manage a partial update of the Poll of Polls, because the YouGov figures for the smaller parties aren't available yet (or at least not for non-payers of the Murdoch Levy).  I'll try to complete the numbers when it becomes possible.  [UPDATE : Now done.]  Once again the trend has been somewhat distorted, because YouGov are re-entering the sample after a short absence.

Constituency ballot : 

SNP 51.8% (-0.5)
Labour 20.4% (-0.4)
Conservatives 17.6% (+0.6)
Liberal Democrats 5.8% (n/c)

Regional list ballot : 

SNP 46.0% (-1.0)
Labour 19.4% (+0.1)
Conservatives 17.2% (+0.7)
Liberal Democrats 6.8% (-0.5)
Greens 6.6%  (-0.2)

(The Poll of Polls is based on a rolling average of the most recent poll from each of the firms that have reported Scottish Parliament voting intention numbers over the previous three months, and that adhere to British Polling Council rules. At present, there are five - Panelbase, Survation, YouGov, TNS and Ipsos-Mori. Whenever a new poll is published, it replaces the last poll from the same company in the sample.)

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Arguably even bigger news from YouGov overnight is a Britain-wide poll showing that the Leave campaign (or should I say "Leave campaigns"?) in the EU referendum has opened up a 45% to 36% lead.  Although we've got used to Leave sometimes having the lead in online polls, it's rare for the gap to be out of 'statistical tie' territory, and it's highly likely that the movement in opinion has been caused by David Cameron's failure to secure a credible deal.  Of course, we have to at all times remember the huge disparity between online and telephone polling on the referendum - it's likely that a phone poll conducted now would still show a substantial lead for Remain.  But just as we need to start taking seriously the idea of Ruth Davidson as leader of the official opposition at Holyrood, we also need to start taking seriously the possibility that Britain might - just might - be heading for the EU exit door, thus opening up the prospect of a relatively early second independence referendum in Scotland.

UPDATE : The datasets for the EU poll are now out.  Of the five regions that YouGov divides Britain into, Scotland is the only one that wants to Remain in the EU - and by a whopping margin of 53% to 32%.  Not much comfort there for the "Scotland isn't that much different" narrative constantly pushed by the unionist press.