Never forget that more than 42% of Moray voters backed independence in 2014

Matt Singh of Number Cruncher Politics has drawn attention to the fact that the SNP (at least according to the latest YouGov poll) have lost most of the anti-independence people who used to vote for them, and that the Tories now have roughly 50% of both Leave voters and No voters.  He reckons this points to "big swings in NE + Moray".

Common sense will already have told you there's a danger that the SNP-to-Tory swing in areas like Moray and Aberdeenshire will be significantly bigger than the national average, because those are the places where large numbers of people have traditionally floated between SNP and Tory/Lib Dem, rather than between SNP and Labour.  That does leave several SNP seats looking very vulnerable.  However, there's also an "up to a point, Lord Copper" element in this - you really do have to go back to basics and remind yourself that both Moray and Aberdeenshire actually voted to remain in the European Union, and both had significant minorities that voted Yes in September 2014.

It's true that Moray had the highest Leave vote in Scotland last year, but even if three-quarters of those voters break for the Tories, that would only take the party to roughly 37.5% of the electorate (leaving aside for a moment the complicating factor of turnout).  OK, the Tories will also attract a percentage of Remain voters, but the vast majority of 'Tory Remainers' will have voted No in 2014 - and three-quarters of the constituency's No voters would still only take the party to roughly 43.2%.  It's not hard to see why Angus Robertson is likely to at least be competitive in a constituency which had a 42.4% Yes vote and a 50.1% Remain vote, especially once you factor in his personal following and a potential "leader's bonus".

There was an almost 40% Yes vote in Aberdeenshire, so again, it scarcely stretches credulity to believe that the SNP may be able to hold on there in first-past-the-post contests.  Having said that, Aberdeenshire is a vast and varied local authority, and West Aberdeenshire & Kincardine looks to be tougher terrain than Gordon or Banff & Buchan.

Perhaps the more important question here is what the loss of anti-independence voters means for the SNP's strategy.  Do they conclude that those people have basically gone for good, and instead concentrate on firing up the Yes vote, and perhaps winning over the 25% of current Labour voters who are pro-independence?  Do they look at the unionist parties' success at using the fear of independence to dramatically reduce the number of No voters who vote SNP, and conclude that talking up the independence issue is the obvious way to deter Yes voters from backing unionist parties, especially Labour?  At the moment, the SNP's answer to both of those questions appears to be a firm "no".  They've instead gone back to the 2015 strategy of not scaring the horses on independence, which presumably indicates that they believe they can win some No voters back, even in the face of the unprecedented paranoia about independence being whipped up by the unionist parties.  I do have a slight doubt in my mind as to whether that's the correct call, but thankfully this is all way above my pay grade, so I'll just wait and see how it plays out.

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