There are some curious comments from Professor John Curtice quoted in The National today. As a commenter on the previous thread wryly put it, Curtice "argues both for and against the narrative that the SNP is losing voters straight to Labour". Understandably, The National have chosen to headline the part where he argues against that narrative and states that Labour's gains in Scotland can be traced back to the Trussmageddon period. But I think that's going to lead to people getting the false impression that Labour have only been gaining votes from the Tories, whereas in fact Curtice points out himself that a substantial number of SNP voters from 2019 have switched to Labour. I would guess what he really means is that the Trussmageddon generated so much momentum behind Labour in England that it started to affect the SNP v Labour battle in Scotland, and some voters who would otherwise have stuck with the SNP started moving across to Labour.
There are two facts that are fairly undeniable in all this -
1) The SNP are currently polling around ten percentage points lower on average than the vote share they received at the 2019 general election. Self-evidently, such a drop doesn't happen as a result of Tory voters switching to Labour. The only way it can happen is if SNP voters switch to other parties and/or move to the undecided column.
2) Many polls show that the extra voters Labour have picked up since 2019 have come more from the SNP than from unionist parties. For example, in this week's Redfield & Wilton poll, the composition of Labour's current support is as follows -
Only 49.6% actually voted Labour in 2019
27.1% voted SNP in 2019
9.3% voted Conservative in 2019
4.7% voted Liberal Democrat in 2019
0.4% voted Green in 2019
8.9% did not vote in 2019 (this probably includes people who were not eligible to vote because they were under 18 at the time)
So of the votes that have gone to Labour from other parties, the lion's share has come from the SNP - although admittedly the Ipsos poll showed a somewhat different pattern.
Or we can also look at this the other way round, and see what Redfield & Wilton are saying has happened to SNP voters from 2019. These numbers are not directly comparable with the ones above, because undecideds haven't been stripped out.
How SNP voters from 2019 are planning to vote now:
"The only way it can happen is if SNP voters switch to other parties and/or move to the undecided column."
ReplyDeleteOr refuse to do the telephone survey at all (or not take part online). That could be a protest against the SNP, or just a total loss of interest.
Well, that's the Scottish Skier argument, if anyone actually buys it.
DeleteWonder what the odds are for turnout being less than 33% in Scotland.
ReplyDeleteSeveral thousand to one against, I would guess, it's not going to be anything like that low.
DeleteThe wry commenter here. I’m honestly surprised by how low the SNP to Greens figure is. They’re even behind the hardcore unionist Lib Dems! I know, small numbers based on a subsample and all, so maybe it’s just one to keep an eye on across several polls. But my intuition is tingling.
ReplyDeleteClearly, a lot of 2019 SNP voters are willing to cross over to an anti-independence party. But what if it’s not just Labour? Is this a sign of how deeply scunnered many people are about the prospects of independence now at all?
It could well be that many are not indy supporters. 2019 was very much fought on 'stop Brexit' by the SNP so they could of picked up Lab/Lib supporters of the back of that. Now they are simply return back to the parties they backed in 2017.
DeleteThat would be more plausible if support for independence wasn't still running at 48-53% - way higher than the SNP's own support.
DeleteJames - I think your blogpost is lacking 37 graphs and six dartboards, otherwise it won't make sense.
ReplyDelete" If it instead looks like Alba are just taking a very small percentage of people who would otherwise vote SNP, that's not going to look like a constructive intervention at all."
ReplyDeleteIt will make little difference if it really is very small.
That's simply not true. On the current state of play, there are lots of knife-edge SNP-Labour seats, and in some of them a loss of 1% from the SNP to Alba could be enough to swing the balance and help Labour win.
DeleteAssumes Alba takes votes off SNP which James table says not so much
DeleteEh? They're on 1% of the vote overall and they're taking 1% of the SNP's vote. Very, very much, rather than "not so much".
DeleteWhere did you think Alba's votes were coming from? The Tories?
Suspect a lot comes from erstwhile non voters. 1% is tiny. Alba is right of SNP btw.
DeleteAnon, you're being very silly. The poll shows they're taking 1% of SNP votes. They're on 1% overall. You don't need to "suspect a lot comes from erstwhile non voters" when the evidence of your own eyes shows the votes are coming from the SNP.
DeleteAlba is more feminist than the SNP but I don't know on what planet that puts them to the right of the SNP.
The figure 1% in that table James put up has sampling error and hence is statistically insignificant different from zero. It is as a share of snp 2019 voters in the survey and hence not of the whole survey. So the 1% in the whole survey (which itself is not statistically significantly different from zero) is only in part coming from SNP. But in any case a few hundred votes. An irritant at best for the SNP.
Delete"On the current state of play, there are lots of knife-edge SNP-Labour seats, and in some of them a loss of 1% from the SNP to Alba could be enough to swing the balance and help Labour win."
DeleteJust wait till they hear about the 2% of former SNP voters who will vote Green then! Twice as much swinging the balance!
All right, to settle this dispute I've looked at the Redfield & Wilton data tables again. After the turnout filter is applied, there are five respondents who say they will vote Alba at the general election. All five voted SNP at the 2019 general eldction, and all five also voted SNP in the 2021 Holyrood constituency ballot. So Anonymous at 8.15am is actually correct - according to Redfield & Wilton at any rate, Alba's voters are *exclusively* former SNP voters, and not former non-voters.
DeleteThanks James. Five.
DeleteYes, five. That's how polling works - you extrapolate from a smaller sample to a larger population. Certainly if there was a groundswell for Alba among former non-voters or former voters for parties other than the SNP, I'd have expected to see more than zero switchers from those groups in this poll.
DeleteNaturally. I know the central limit theorems of statistics and the relationship between sampling error and number of observations.
DeleteLet's hope so. The sarcastic air of "Five" did not give me much hope.
DeletePS when I said "a lot" up there I didn't mean "a lot of non voters are supporting ALBA" but rather "a lot of ALBA supporters would otherwise be non voters" (I did say that). I agree that James's supplementary data which he reported in a comment above (thanks James) based on the 5 Alba all coming formerly from SNP does not back my statement up at all, so I may be wrong, but the sampling error with a number like 5 respondents makes it hard to be sure. What the 5 does tell us though is that Alba's support is tiny and I think SNP will not be too affected if they do pick up 1% in the 12 (?) seats they propose to fight especially since presumably ALBA will only intervene in seats that are not super-marginal between SNP and either Labour Conservative or Lib Dem.
Delete"presumably ALBA will only intervene in seats that are not super-marginal between SNP and either Labour Conservative or Lib Dem"
DeleteAny SNP seat is a potential super-marginal. As I've been pointing out, on a bad night the SNP could lose all but two seats, so if Alba are going to stand in at least 12 seats, they can't really avoid seats the SNP might lose.
If Alba stand in any seats at all—beyond MacAskill and Hanvey—the SNP will blame them for any losses; no matter the arithmetic.
DeleteActually, the SNP's so entitled they'll blame Hanvey and MacAskill too!
Whether they choose to keep schtum about the losses they make courtesy of the Greens will be an interesting test of tactical loyalty.
Ps remember there is rounding.
ReplyDeleteSNP -> Lab switching is real and substantial. Yes, Starmer is ultra cautious and insipid. He just wants to win and not be tied down by any actual campaign promises once he has done. The Labor Party in Australia won their GE, after years in the wilderness, per the same “Small Target” strategy. Plenty of Scots voters will switch to Labour (including from other Unionist parties too) eyes open wide to this pragmatic and unambitious approach. Something is better than nothing. Currently the SNP offers in practice zilch since it’s visibly just performative and salary seeking.
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing pragmatic about it from a voter's point of view, so if voters fall for it, by definition their eyes are not wide open. Quite simply Starmer does not need to win Scottish seats to form a government - SNP MPs would help install him anyway.
DeleteI wonder how much voters are influenced by the bandwagon effect. Labour's obviously going to win a thumping victory unless something utterly astonishing happens. Perhaps that widely known inevitability influences people's feelings, and to some extent their vote. It might make Sarwar's "seat at the table" argument more appealing to them than if a closer election was on the cards. Rational or otherwise, the prospect of a few dozen SNP MPs stuck over on the opposition benches, facing 400+ Labour MPs in government is a compelling notion. Who's more likely to get things done: an MP whose party is in government, or one who's stuck to grumble in eternal opposition?
DeleteNow, I myself have zero interest in a Labour MP. I remember exactly what they were like: troughers just like the SNP are now! But I’m a solid Yes voter who's far beyond Labour's reach or target. Many people aren't nearly as determined as us. And some number of them may well want "a return to normal government" with the Tories flushed down the drain.
James has written about this problem many times: only Labour can offer a new UK government. The best the SNP can do is push for independence. Their preference in recent years has been to cross their fingers for a hung parliament. But in this election? They really do seem pointless.
Me again - 10:53 above. Hi.
DeleteThe simple answer to this is Forbes replacing Yousaf. She’d clear out the muck of careerists and their idiotic policies and start over. The SNP would lose some self-opinionated loudmouths to the ‘Scottish Greens’ (misnomer) - and be all the better for it, fast forward to winning centr ground Scots back to its cause. Sooner the better!
53 again. I'd like to see Kate as First Minister, too. I don't know if even she could prevent the losses the SNP's going to suffer in Westminster, though. I see it as the combination of two distinct things:
Delete1. Humza kicking independence off into the long grass, yet again
2. Labour's English landslide (and the coming end of Tory rule) altering the equation in Scotland, too
A different leader could change the first but not the second. England gets the government it votes for, quite regardless of anyone in Scotland, even the First Minister.
If anything, I guess it helps that the bloodbath is on Humza's watch. His replacement after the WM election would be free to make a new start. So long as they pick the right one, this time.
53: Do you think Kate Forbes be able to unite the party as FM?
DeleteThat's *the* question.
DeleteMy understanding, entirely from the outside, is that the Continuity Nicola faction hates her guts and sees her as the primary threat to their grip on all executive power in the party. She's up there with Fergus as persona non grata for them. If she winds up as leader after all, then they're going to be seriously dismayed.
Yet very almost half the party voted for Kate in the leadership contest. So I think there's already a large base of support for her in the party, concentrated at lower ranks, away from the Nicola clique.
Now, the days after the shock of a thorough kicking in a general election could be absolutely crucial to what happens next. It won't be Kate calling for Humza's resignation that evicts him, it will be unexpected voices, potentially including those very (former) MPs who I consider part of the problem. It will be a fascinating time to watch. There is no iron rule in parties that election losers must resign. They must be pushed. And they must be pushed by those who calculate they have something big to win.
Thank you for the thoughtful response.
DeleteAbsolutely, very well said (53 again)
ReplyDeleteYou have to wonder what Alba’s goal is in the medium to long term. Are they hoping to become the main pro Indy party? You have to think this is what they’re aiming for, though obviously it’s not going to happen overnight.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, at the moment they’re just taking some voters away from the SNP and thereby splitting the nationalist vote. This clearly isn’t doing us any good, but hopefully it’s just a short term issue.
Alba exists as a party for dispossessed Yessers who have no home in the SNP that’s lost its way, let alone the Greens. Both for their membership and for voters.
DeleteThey’re necessary so long as we’re stuck in this strange situation where the primary nationalist party is scared of independence.
Anon at 10:52pm, I really don’t see the point of Alba if they’re only ever going to be a fringe party or a party that disillusioned traditional SNP voters go to. Having more than one pro Indy party does us no good.
ReplyDeleteBut is the SNP "pro indy"? That's my point.
DeleteI get what you’re saying, but I just feel having more than one pro Indy party doesn’t help the cause.
DeleteDo you think Alba can replace the SNP?
No, I don't.
DeleteThe best thing they can do is remind the SNP of its core purpose as a protest party, and hope to push them back.
The obvious and prominent example of a protest party pushing an establishment party in a constitutional turn was of course UKIP's effect on the balance of power within the Tories, leading them to Brexit. The Tories just weren't going to leave Europe by and of themselves. Yet the "pro-Brexit vote" was not "split" by UKIP's existence, and instead that very thing was achieved.
I despise Brexit, myself, but the *strategic* parallels are striking. Organised and sustained protest works.
You make a good point, and support for independence certainly remains consistently high around 50%, however in the absence of a referendum, I’m thinking in the context of seats at the GE and then Holyrood election.
DeleteA split in the pro Indy vote will potentially reduce the number of pro Indy MPs and MSPs, thereby potentially damaging the Indy cause.
Your assumption remains the same: that the SNP is actively seeking independence. But it is not.
DeleteIf all was well, there would be no need to compete. But all is not well with the SNP. A quick look at the top of this page might remind you that the SNP’s vote is slumping, and it’s not going to Alba, it’s going to British Labour.
The only way forward to independence, as far as I’m concerned, is radical change within the SNP focusing on independence, and everybody gets behind them.
DeleteWe have to assume the GE is going to be a disaster, but that change can come after the election and the party can move forward and win the Holyrood election.
We have to be careful. Some of our troughers are of the 'money and cameras' type and never could have been any better.
ReplyDeleteOthers, plus some activists and thousands of voters, gradually saw that independence by 'gentlemens agreement' was an illusion and were scared into political paralysis by the propect of having to find a way forward in that new reality.
As a whole we are still failing to explain that the British state will never 'let' us go. It will tell any lie and commit any crime necessary to hang on to Scotland.
We need to face this.
Never?
ReplyDeleteThey won't let us go easily. Not effortlessly. Not without a crisis. But British rule is not eternal. Just take a look at this map on Wikipedia of all the successful independence movements and their dates of freedom from London Rule:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/List_of_countries_gained_independance_from_the_UK_Flag_version_3.svg/2400px-List_of_countries_gained_independance_from_the_UK_Flag_version_3.svg.png
Many of those nations didn't have to fight a war of independence, especially the later leavers. London left them when they became too much trouble and expense.
I agree with you that we'll "never" get a Section 30 for indyref2 for the foreseeable future. We will have to create our own democratic event, and we must follow it with relentless pressure. No waiting for still more decades to come will ever get us there, tut-tutting at the Brits and telling ourselves independence is as sure to come as Pete Wishart's pension.
But come, it will. With EFFORT from our own leaders here in Scotland. We're only stuck in union for as long as our own leadership chooses so.
Agreed. A strategy which backs up a democratic vote with a subsequent determination to make Scotland ungovernable from Westminster is the way. Every dirty trick will be used against us but you are right - eventually we can win.
ReplyDeleteWe have to build the understanding of what will be necessary !