Firstly, the question of the hour: how many Yes voters have actually drifted to Labour and just how pro-independence is the current Labour vote? Of people who would vote Yes in a new referendum (almost half the population, remember) and who are likely to vote in the general election, 70% have stuck with the SNP, 18% would vote Labour, 6% would vote Lib Dem and 3% would vote Conservative. But Labour's own vote breaks down as 23.3% Yes, 63.4% No, or 26.9% Yes, 73.1% No if only those who know how they would vote in a referendum are taken into account. That means Labour have a much more complicated coalition of support in constitutional terms than any other major party. The backbone of their support is unionist, and presumably includes at least some people who have previously voted Tory for unionist reasons and who would not be happy if Labour proved to be anything but a reliably Brit Nat party (they needn't worry!). But Labour's hopes of seat gains largely depend on retaining a substantial minority of independence supporters, who might yet be susceptible to wooing from the SNP with a genuine offer on independence - an offer that shows no sign of materialising, admittedly. Tokenistic discussion papers on culture in an independent Scotland aren't going to cut it.
Intriguingly, the SNP may be gaining more traction than we thought by reminding people that they are much better placed than Labour to shut out the Tories. When asked which party they would vote for if they wanted to wipe out the Tories in Scotland, respondents in the poll were almost evenly split between Labour (36%) and the SNP (34%).
I couldn't find voting intention figures for Alba yesterday, but they're in the data tables and they're not too bad - Alba are on 2% of the Holyrood constituency vote and 3% of the Holyrood list vote.
Of the leaders' personal ratings, the two I couldn't find yesterday were both Alba politicians - Neale Hanvey and Ash Regan. It turns out that Neale Hanvey is on -14 and Ash Regan is on -25. Mr Hanvey's figure is affected by the unusually high percentage (39%) who haven't heard of him, while Ms Regan's surname is misspelled in the data tables as "Reagen", which may imply that the same misspelling occurred in the questionnaire when respondents were interviewed. Here is how the two slot into the wider league table. Some of the figures have been very slightly adjusted since yesterday due to rounding issues.
Net ratings of leading politicians:
Anas Sarwar (Labour): -4
Keir Starmer (Labour): -6
Richard Tice (Reform UK): -10
Stephen Flynn (SNP): -11
Alex Cole-Hamilton (Liberal Democrats): -13
Neale Hanvey (Alba): -14
Ed Davey (Liberal Democrats): -17
Patrick Harvie (Greens): -20
Lorna Slater (Greens): -21
Humza Yousaf (SNP): -21
Douglas Ross (Conservatives): -22
Ash Regan (Alba): -25
Rishi Sunak (Conservatives): -45
Alex Salmond (Alba): -47
As I noted yesterday, the public as a whole are opposed to the SNP remaining in coalition with the Greens, by a margin of 41% to 28%. However, the data tables show that people who voted SNP at the 2019 general election take the opposite view, by a bigger margin of 52% to 22%. The questions the SNP need to ask themselves, though, are just how scunnered is that 22%, and are those the very voters that need to be won back?
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Before we finish, a reminder that the Scot Goes Pop opinion poll fundraiser urgently needs a boost - let's not leave it in limbo for months. It's important that not all Scottish opinion polling is commissioned by anti-independence clients - we need to make sure that occasionally questions are asked that Yes supporters want asked. Donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE.
However if you have a Paypal account the best way to donate is via direct Paypal payment, because that can totally eliminate fees depending on which option you select, and payment usually comes through instantly. My Paypal email address is:
jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk
Labour’s vote contains (among others) two vital groups of people for the independence movement:
ReplyDelete1. Scunnered Yessers who still support independence but are fed up with the “Indy-lite” SNP.
2. Persuadable Nos whose general outlook is social democratic, European and liberal.
The first group is exactly the people James is on about.
The second group is of course our fabled “soft nos” who were coming round to Yes during the pandemic and could have won us indyref2 if Nicola had pulled her finger out.
Labour’s riding high right now as we all know. Look on the bright side: the only way after the general election is down for them. The next labour government will be a bitter disappointment for the liberal left Scots who will vote for them. Their voters will be up for grabs again.
It is vital we are ready for them.
Overall analysis very encouraging for SNP.
DeleteIf they grab that steering wheel and get back on the road to independence, yes. But they are currently aimed squarely for a crash.
DeleteThe last Labour UK government was a political lifetime ago. That was pre-indyref, pre-2011 Holyrood landslide, back when independence was nowhere near 50% in polling, let alone the settled will of the Scottish people.
DeleteSimply put: Scotland fitted into the UK so much more easily back then.
It will be fascinating to see how different things are this time for the first Labour government of the Yes era. Once the Tories are heaved out, all of Britain’s problems—including the Union itself—fall on them.
It's certainly in all of this an encouraging time for SNP supporters after a difficult 12 months. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge in those 12 months. With a new leader installed and a new set of ministers appointed, it is now a more forward-looking period.
DeleteNobody realistically should expect the SNP to hold all of the SNP MPs elected in 2019 which was an unusual election. A substantial fall to more normal levels is therefore priced in and nobody should expect resignations from SNP leadership team in those to-be-expected circumstances.
There is no such thing as 'normal' levels. If you're talking about 2017-type levels, those have only ever happened once, so aren't 'normal'. If you're talking about the most common levels historically, ie. between 1 and 7 seats, Yousaf certainly will be expected to resign if it's as bad as that.
DeleteWishful thinking meets expectations management. An encouraging time for the Continuity Sturgeon SNP? I think not! Better hunker down, guys. It’s going to get rough.
DeleteAnon at 11:16, first Labour government of the “Yes era” ????
DeleteThat's what he/she said. Good on you for paying attention.
DeleteIndeed. You read me right. Back in 2010, when Gordon Brown was turfed out, independence wasn’t on the agenda. Scots just couldn’t see it and didn’t think about it. 2014 changed all that. We lost the vote but we forever changed Scotland.
DeleteLabour’s going to have a difficult time with us.
Not with the SNP heading for oblivion.
DeleteThe SNP can crash. Scotland has still changed, though. Labour never had to deal with 50% of Scots wanting shot of London rule before. They won’t be weighing their votes in lifelong Scottish strongholds like the olden days, not for long.
DeleteThe ball’s in their court the day their government begins. Scotland is watching now.
Not sure who are the most deluded,
ReplyDeletePeople who think the Union can be saved or those who await the actual bodily resurrection of Blighty's finest, Winnie Churchill.
The ones who think the Union can be saved! Definitely! What ARE they smoking!
DeleteSalmond at -47 - we know who is respondible for that - Sturgeon, Sturgeon's gang, the alphabetties, Sandy Brindley - all of whom worked with the Britnat media to trash his reputation. Dodgy characters the lot of them - some of whom should be in jail. This lot have lost two court cases to Salmond - hopefully a hat trick of wins is on the near horizon.
ReplyDeleteSandy Brindley of Rape Crisis Scotland always on the Britnat media saying the lying alphabetties were telling the truth about Salmond. Brindley/ Rape Crisis Scotland is funded by the Scottish Government - yes the same government that persecuted Salmond - not once did the Britnat media say her opinion may be more than a little compromised/biased due to the money she gets from the public purse/ Scottish government. Sturgeon's gang working with the Britnat media to take out Salmond.
DeleteNow there is Britnat shit but there is also WGD shit.
ReplyDeleteHere is stinking pile of it from nicophant Dr Jim.
"Alex Salmond was never for what folk think of as outright independence, he was for independence within a British state which is no independence at all.
Nicola Sturgeon was and is full and total independence separate from the British state, and why they fear her far more that they ever did Alex Salmond, and why at no time would they ever grant the same referendum to her that Cameron knew he was going to win in 2014.
Even if Yes had won in 2014 we'd still have lost and Alex Salmond would be sitting in the House of Lords at this moment instead of working with the British to stop Nicola Sturgeon now for his belated reward of a peerage."
Not one WGD numpty pulls him up for this deranged post. Dr Jim does not seem to wonder why Sturgeon kept on saying for years that she would get another gold standard sec 30 referendum. Did she not listen to Dr Jim? Of course not because Jimbo, like Kavanagh and all the rest of the WGD numpties were busy punting the line that Westminster would fold under the pressure of Scottish democracy and concede a gold standard sec 30 referendum. The trouble for Jimbo and Kavanagh and all the WGD numpties is that some of us remember the crap they used to spout. Remember all the same crap Sturgeon came out with. Westminster couldn't give a flying f**k for Scottish democracy because they know it disnae exist. Scotland is a colony.
Finally, someone should tell Jimbo Sturgeon is no longer FM.
IFS, 🎶🎶🎶🎶 if you leave, at least in my lifetime I’ve had one dream come true, I was blessed to be loved by someone as wonderful as you, please don’t go 🎶🎶🎶🎶 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
DeleteBritnat shit now turns up to go with WGD shit.
DeleteKC, what is the point of these asinine posts? Is there some 'joke' I'm not seeing because you seem to find them funny?
DeleteYou can't deny the Dr Jim guy makes some great points, Salmond did get his referendum easy peasy but there was no way they were ever going to give in to Sturgeon, her polling was so high she probably would've won a vote and the only person complaining about that is you
DeleteAnon at 3-47 kc only had a bit of banter nothing wrong with that and he did wind up ifs an others. Even though I don’t like he’s a unionist found it quite funny tbh
DeleteYou're idea of banter and what's funny must be different to mine! At least when he started out trolling by telling us how we should stick with the SNP, it provoked debate (it's supposed to be a political site after all). This stuff however just seems adolescent drivel to me - maybe I'm too intelligent to see the humour😁
DeleteOh well that’s up to you
DeleteI see that Starmer net rating is going negative already, and there's still a long way until the elections
ReplyDeleteI'd like to meet some of these Yes labour voters and ask them what they think this local branch of the English labour party can do to bring Independence closer
ReplyDeleteBut that's not why they're doing it. They see an SNP that is not offering independence and thinking "there's no point in voting SNP, then". They're therefore turning their minds to other things.
DeleteThe SNP deserves credit for attracting so many Labour supporters in the first place.
DeleteHumza was personally responsible for winning all of them over, of course. When he was 12.
DeleteHumza is nearly 40 and has been in politics for a very long time and certainly he has played an important role alongside many others in the SNP leadership team.
DeleteNearly 40, wow that's impressive. Kate Forbes is over 30 too.
DeleteMairi McAllan is over 20.
DeletePoor us. Where’s our 80 year old? ;)
DeleteYou mean Lord Blackford?
DeleteAlex Salmond is at the bottom of the list because of Nicola Sturgeon working against him.
ReplyDeleteHe was always a bit marmite, even in his heyday. But yeah, hard to see coming back from that.
DeleteThere is no route to independence.
ReplyDeleteWouldn’t say there’s no route, but it’s going to be very difficult.
DeleteThere is a clear route.
DeleteAnon at 7:47, are you thinking along the lines of declaring the next Holyrood election a de facto referendum?
DeleteAbsolutely. That's not even a difficult route. Independence is inevitable. I'm not sure what's more embarrassing - people like Anon at 6.28pm who think the Union can be saved, or those loons who are waiting for the actual bodily resurrection of Blighty's finest, Winnie Churchill.
DeleteAll nutters, of course, but Anon at 6.28 is definitely the more embarrassing.
DeleteHell yeah!
DeleteLet’s hope the SNP have improved radically by 2026.
DeleteSteveP: the SNP I'd now under new leadership. The new leadership is currently woring at greatly improving the SNP.
DeleteBy sacking Kate Forbes the day they arrived and appointing a bunch of Nicola’s B-Team? Fantastic job, Continuity Squad!
DeleteLet’s see how that pays off in the general election.
There needs to be a clear out after the GE, including a new leader.
DeleteThe Holyrood election will be so important. The SNP have to get it right this time.
Absolutely.
DeleteI really fear they’ll refuse to learn their lesson, though. It’s so vital they end this era of “no Indy please, we’re progressives”. Whatever they think that is…
Peter Kellner has an editorial on the current state of play in Westminster polling:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/elections/election-countdown/64633/is-labours-lead-as-big-as-the-polls-suggest
He’s talking up the chances of an overtime of Labour’s lead. But even his low end prediction is an overall majority for Sir Kier. A repeat of 1992 or 2015 looks nigh impossible, even if the breathless predictions of all time record majorities are proved daft.
Autocorrect: an overestimate of Labour’s lead.
DeleteHe’s got form of course, with his famous “Kellner adjustment” to YouGov polls over the years. I do sense he’s right in this case, however. Scunnered tories are still tories by and large, and tories really vote.
He does bury a massive caveat at the end of his article. I'm doing the same with this comment.
DeleteI've seen an opposite argument - that a combination of using 2016 referendum recall, false recall increasing over time and overlooking Reform is distorting polling results in the other direction, underestimating Labour's lead.
Basically, Canada-1993 is on the table IF Reform UK manages to stand in almost every constituency.
As exciting as an English realignment would be, the problem is you need a third party that's in good shape to replace one of the dominant two. I find it hard to believe the English public would vote for a Farrage government. Much more likely there'll be a Tory slump on the scale of 1997 leaving Labour dominant but the Tories still second, albeit very distant.
DeleteGovernments don't just lose elections. Oppositions must also win them. Blair's government in waiting was as credible as I've ever seen (and yes I knew they were neoliberals at the time). Starmer's isn't at that level. The Tories are in a huge mess, but they were throughout the mid nineties too. I can't envision them being replaced, not without a credible and professional third entrant.
Is that the sound of Nick Clegg kicking himself?
That kind of realignment does not require third parties in good shape. Under FPTP, Labour could well win +80% of the seats with the Tories crushed to the level of current third parties and either the Lib Dems or the SNP becoming Leader of the Opposition with as few as thirty seats.
DeleteWe've lived through a similar scenario in Scotland, with once-dominant Labour giving way to a SNP dominance - and becoming a third party itself.
Reform does not have to win a single seat to achieve this. They merely have to drain the voters who couldn't vote for them in 2017 and 2019 from the Conservative total, leaving Labour(or Lib Dems) as winners by default. Kellner's article mentions five million Conservative voters and argues that some of them will return, but fails to consider that over five million people voted for the Brexit Party in 2019's forgotten European elections(when the Tories came FIFTH).
Obviously, pollsters don't want to give Reform too much weight until they've confirmed that they're actually contesting enough seats. And IF they don't manage that, the Tories will probably hang onto second place.
I remember the 2019 euro election well: an absurd contest to elect a final round of dead ducks to a parliament the UK was already midway withdrawing from. It was the perfect environment for a protest vote. The loonies were taking over on the final day of the asylum.
DeleteThe Tories then went on to win a comfortable majority in that same year’s general election. They’re remarkably good at that, even with their knickers around their ankles!
IfS: the WhatsApp line of attack on Nicola sturgeon falls flat because all relevant information was handed over before deletion.
ReplyDeleteHow do YOU know what was and wasn't relevant? You have no idea what information she deleted. The gullibility of Nicola fans never ceases to amaze me.
DeleteKate Forbes was very good on BBCQT showing that the SNP have a lot of talent as a party
ReplyDeleteSNP had a difficult 12 months after Nicola Sturgeon decided it was time to step down. Such an important and popular figure necessarily is quite difficult to replace. Especially with a hostile media. However the SNP have now come through this difficult period strong and resolute.
ReplyDeleteThat said, nobody should expect the result of 2019 General Electio to be repeated. It was a coming together of an u usual set of circumstances.
We can should not be surprised were the SNP to lose seats.
The work the SNP is doing however is not about just the next one election? but putting in place a strategy for the longer term.
Kate Forbes is a valued part of the party.
Translation:
DeleteSNP is in severe trouble after Nicola Sturgeon decided it was time to resign before the polis raided her house. Such a notorious and manipulative figure was necessarily risky to replace. Especially with a hostile Yes movement. However the SNP stitched up the contest and the Continuity Nicola Faction came through this difficult period with their choke hold on the party intact, and resolute to frustrate independence.
That said, nobody should expect the result of 2019 General Election to be repeated. It was a coming together of an unusual set of circumstances: Yessers still believed in Nicola and the party then.
We should not be surprised to see some of the SNP's fattest seats thrown right out onto the curb at Westminster.
The work the SNP is doing however is not about just the next one election but putting in place a strategy for the longer term to keep Scotland in the Union.
Kate Forbes is a terrifying threat to our continued stranglehold of the party.
"However the SNP have now come through this difficult period strong and resolute...Kate Forbes is a valued part of the party."
DeleteI can't work out whether this is just astroturfing or a deliberate parody of really, really bad astroturfung.