As I pointed out both before and after the Rutherglen by-election, the problem with any Labour victory was not what it would show us about public opinion, but the effect it would have on public opinion. What happened was the nightmare scenario because the swing was far greater than expected and gave both the Scottish and London media the excuse they were dreaming of to paint the result as being of biblical significance. There was a real danger that the early polling after Rutherglen would show a snowball effect with Labour pulling away into a big lead. That hasn't happened, at least not in the first poll, although the big caveat is that fieldwork opened on the day after the by-election, so although most respondents would have heard about the result, the hysteria of the reporting might not have had its full effect by that point.
Scottish voting intentions for the next UK general election (Savanta, 6th-11th October 2023):
SNP 35% (-3)
Labour 35% (+1)
Conservatives 19% (+2)
Liberal Democrats 6% (-1)
Seats projection (with changes from 2019 election): Labour 27 (+26), SNP 20 (-28), Conservatives 7 (+1), Liberal Democrats 5 (+1)
Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:
SNP 37% (-3)
Labour 33% (-)
Conservatives 18% (+2)
Liberal Democrats 6% (-2)
Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:
Labour 29% (+1)
SNP 28% (-)
Conservatives 20% (+2)
Greens 13% (-)
Liberal Democrats 8% (-3)
Seats projection: SNP 42 (-22), Labour 39 (+17), Conservatives 24 (-7), Greens 16 (+8), Liberal Democrats 8 (+4)
My view remains that the SNP are in all sorts of trouble as far as the Westminster election is concerned, and that a poll like this may even exacerbate the problem by encouraging a "you know, we're not doing too badly in the circumstances, are we?" mindset, when in fact they really need to be taking drastic action to turn things around. However, as far as Holyrood is concerned, it probably is fair to suggest that Sarwar's fan club may have got over-excited about the significance of Rutherglen.
And they certainly got over-excited about their belief that Scots were turning their backs on independence in favour of "real change" (a phrase that curiously seems to mean continued right-wing rule from London, ie. no change at all).
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 49% (-)
No 51% (-)
We're seeing a continued decoupling between the SNP and the Yes vote, which means by definition that a huge number of current Labour supporters actively support independence (excluding likely abstainers, roughly one-third of Labour voters in this poll would vote Yes). That may not make for the most stable of long-term relationships.
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If you're a member of the Alba Party, and haven't yet voted in the party's internal elections, I'd be grateful if you'd consider giving me your first preference for Membership Support Convener. The email link to vote should be in your inbox from last Friday.
Seems to me the decoupling between YES vote and SNP vote isn't so much people jumping ship to Labour, as them staying at home in the usual by-election protest vote. So there's a couple of things - first is to see how the first polls will be after the recent SNP conference, will that see some resurgence of support for the SNP?
ReplyDeleteAnd secondly a bit longer term, 2 or 3 months, what will people make of what is on the face of it, a weak resolution on the indy election manifesto? Can that be backed up by something stronger and more credible?
Greens have been advancing at the expense of the SNP as well. Perhaps voters are thinking, why vote SNP with the Greens having a ring through the SNP's nose, when they can vote Green and pull the ring themselves? With Yousaf freezing council tax rises, and being a bit more SNP like, showing some independence from the previous Green control freakery, could that Green vote revert to the SNP?
To be credible in terms of demanding Indy, the SNP need not to be dependent on the Greens in 2026, but to have an overall majority. They have a long way to go to achieve that. First they have to reverse the continuing downward trend of their support.
" We're seeing a continued decoupling between the SNP and the Yes vote, ...." best news I have read for a while.
ReplyDeleteSNP 35% Labour 35% UK GE - the Sturgeon gang effect. It's taken them about 8 years and they ain't finished yet. It just shows if you try hard enough Sturgeon's gang can revive a Labour Party that only got one MP in 2019. Based on these figures Yousaf's independence plan is a farce - Labour 27 MPs - SNP 20 MPs. A farce of a plan from a party that disnae want independence. Hey - but no need to worry yesindyref2 has fallen in love with Yousaf and thinks he is just great. Mind you I am pretty sure the Admiral was a Labour voter for a long time, so perhaps that has something to do with his newly found admiration for Yousaf.
For the GE I voted Labour to kick out the useless Tory John Corrie until 2001 when the Tories had disappeared and the SNP started to have a chance. SNP since then. For Holyrood it's been SNP x 2 every election.
DeleteAre you still voting for UKIP?
As I posted - you supported the Unionist Labour Party for a long time and it doesn't surprise me you voted both votes SNP in 2021 because you were a WGD numpty. Your new found admiration for Yousaf marks you out as still being a WGD numpty.
DeleteI have never voted for UKIP but that never stops WGD numpties like you lying does it Admiral.
Here is a selection of English Labour Party and Humza Yousaf loving quotes by yesindyref2 on WGD:-
Delete" Break away, Scottish Labour, break away and be a party again. You are represented by Sarwar, a guy with principles, not Starmer."
" Dugdale did her best but was put in her place by the bitter old guard - does Sarwar have the courage to match the courage shown by Yousaf, and move out from Starmer's pale shadow?"
" Yousaf's response on this is millimetre perfect."
" ...am putting myself - pro tem - totally behind Yousaf........he's the breath of fresh air needed, ....."
So the Admiral is a fan of Dugdale and Sarwar and pro tem Yousaf. This is the same person who was totally behind Sturgeon for 9 years and was sure she would deliver Indyref2. She delivered a crooked conspiracy against Salmond, a luxury motorhome for her mother in law, a horsebox for the SNP president and a dodgy election process to elect her continuity candidate.
Have there been any sightings of her husband. Has Sturgeon locked him in their garden shed or has he done a runner to Portugal ?
Not very bright are you? I support Labour as much as you support UKIP.
DeleteVoting for a party in 3 elections to keep out a useless Tory is not supporting them, and in my constituency, Cunninghame North, the SNP had no chance until fairly recently, same as many others after the 1979 disaster when they went from 11 to 2 (and then 1 MP). Other than those 3 elections I voted SNP to keep their percentages up as much as possible and keep Indy alive.
Did you secretly vote for May, BoJo and Truss?
This is fun. Doing a similar selection of out of context quotes by Cubby on SGP:
Delete"I have", "newly found admiration for", "the Sturgeon gang", "and they", "WGD numpties", "."".
Well, quite. Each to their own.
Well Admiral I guess you expressing your admiration for Dugdale, Sarwar and Yousaf is better than you expressing your admiration for a whole range of weapons of war as you have done on numerous occasions. I thought you were changing but naw once a WGD numpty.
DeleteDon't cry cubby.
DeleteHey Admiral are you wearing your ' Make Labour Great Again ' cap today or is it the ' I'm With Humza ' cap on a Monday.
DeleteAre you still trying to hump my leg?
DeleteYou are the Dug 🐶 who has been slavering over Sturgeon and Kavanagh for years and now you have moved on to Dugdale, Sarwar and Yousaf. Pathetic.
DeletePoor Cubby, I feel sorry for you so I'll kindly let you have the last word.
DeleteNo danger of an overall majority at Holyrood for the SNP on this polling. Besides, as many have observed, including James as I recall, the 2011 majority was a fluke which depended on the split British opposition and some very lucky breaks in the distribution of the vote. It was “where” we won the vote more than a simple, unstoppable landslide of votes like 2015.
ReplyDeleteAnti-independence voters were shocked by those elections. Observe the sheer amount of tactical voting they’ve done since. 2017 proved they learned their lesson. Scotland is dominated by Yes / No contests, one party each, like it never was before 2011 made independence a credible threat.
2011 was glorious, I remember it well. But looking back I do wonder now if surging to victory and securing indyref so soon was in fact too early.
"the 2011 majority was a fluke which depended on the split British opposition and some very lucky breaks in the distribution of the vote"
DeleteWell, sure, but I'm not sure that's a hugely important point given that a two-party or three-party pro-independence majority at Holyrood can be won without flukes, if the SNP can ever get their act together.
I meant my comment as a reply to yesindyref2's closing point, but I must have picked the wrong reply button.
DeleteI’m wholly in favour of a second Yes party: I've voted for them ever since Hollyrood began: Greens until 2021 then Alba. Salmond's argument in that election was exactly what I’m looking for. Both votes SNP is a superb way to waste a list ballot here in the Lothians.
There is a clear gap in the market for a pro-independence party that is otherwise in opposition to the SNP which Alba have repeatedly thrown away the opportunity to fill by refusing to stand in elections. The assumption that the scunnered middle will vote SNP if there is no Alba candidate is clearly false. They just stay at home. Alba don't engage with real voters or address their issues preferring instead to talk among themselves. Unless they get their own act together they will remain an irrelevance and that is a sad thing for the independence movement because they have some otherwise talented people with a lot to offer.
ReplyDeleteI disagree. To succeed the independence side needs to be united. In my opinion it also has to be co-ordinated and that means that the SNP has to take electoral risks. What I mean by that is that the 'second' vote in Scottish elections from SNP voters needs to be directed to Alba. The Greens got mine last time but if Alba have a clear chance if registering the 5% next time, they'll get my second vote. I think that after the SNP goes into the Scottish Constitutional Convention there is a significant chance of a co-ordinated strategy between the parties.
DeleteAlthough they might like to think otherwise, Alba has the exact same problem the SNP have. They have both been flooded by gender-obsessed activists. That they are diametrically opposed to the SNP's gender-obsessed activists does not matter.
DeleteThe vast majority of people in Scotland, while totally disagreeing with the SNP on the issue, simply don't give a toss. It's so low down on voters' priorities that it scarcely pings on the radar. Yet the entirety of the independence movement now seems dominated by people on all sides of the discussion who spend far too much time in online echo chambers, magnifying the significance of their cause out of all proportion to ordinary voters' desires and needs.
It's a shame, because as you say, there are some fiercely talented people involved in Alba. But so long as the party is dominated by those whose entire identity is consumed with gender politics, they'll continue to make no impression at all beyond Twitter.
In Rutherglen and Hamilton West for instance, there are people saying Labour won because of tactical voting by the Tories. But Labour won by 9,400 votes and the Tories dropped 6,800 votes from 2019 which wouldn't have given the SNP a win at all even if they'd all transferred.
DeleteIf Alba had stood, even if they got 2,000 votes the same people would have been saying the SNP lost because of the hateful Alba splitting their vote.
Alba were right not to stand - the SNP couldn't blame them for their mahoosive drop in vote, from 23,775 to just 8,399.
Disagreed entirely, yesindyref2. If parties like Alba want any influence at all in the national debate, they have to get comfortable with the idea of being blamed for losses.
Delete"You lost because of us? Yep, and you'll continue to lose because of us until you adopt a more hardline strategy on independence."
UKIP didn't achieve their primary goal by standing aside in seats for the Tories. They did so through electoral blackmail, by threatening the Tories into adopting their policies for fear of further losses.
That's the only card small parties have to play. If they stand aside, they'll be ignored. Do you think an EU referendum would have been anywhere near a Tory manifesto in 2015 if UKIP hadn't spent the previous parliament bleeding the Conservatives dry in by-elections? Of course it wouldn't have been.
Alba's failure to stand was nothing less than a strategic howler.
Any united front strategy can't happen unless the SNP is taken back from the careerists that have captured it. But if the SNP has been taken back then there is no need for Alba anymore. Therefore it makes no sense for Alba to ever pursue such a strategy. (Although it could pretend that is its strategy in an attempt to appear reasonable.) It can only actually be successful as a pro-independence party in opposition to the SNP.
DeleteIf a united front is really what is desired then it would be a much faster and more direct strategy to rejoin the SNP and help to take it back. Going by the numbers in their recent internal elections less than 700 votes are needed. If a mere fraction of the Alba membership rejoin the SNP then that would be enough to do it. However, it might be advantagous to wait until the fallout from Branchform is known first.
Alba not included by the pollsters in the polling for Scots Parliament?
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, with this starting position, any new Referendum campaign would be won because unionists don't have the EU remain card anymore.
ReplyDeleteBut the difficult point is how to get the Referendum
Did Savanta release the sub-sets for this poll?
ReplyDeleteYes, they did, and to answer the earlier question, Alba didn't seem to be included, although I can't 100% guarantee that because Excel files (or whatever it was) are extremely difficult to navigate on my phone. But I checked multiple tables and didn't spot Alba - only a generic "another party" option.
DeleteOh yes, good luck SGP. One member one vote should be the way.
ReplyDeleteThe SNP should ditch their delegate system and join the 21st century - electronic voting for all their members - also one member one vote. I think it would be a game changer.
There has never been greater need for change in this country.
ReplyDeleteOnly independence can provide that change.
It's time.