BREAKING: Propaganda outfit "Scotland in Union" caught fibbing about their own poll - the claimed numbers in the press release do not tally with the data tables, which actually show the SNP 1% ahead on the Holyrood constituency ballot

As you may already have seen, I have an analysis piece in today's edition of The National about the new Scotland In Union / Survation propaganda poll, and you can read it HERE.

Once again, Survation have agreed to use Scotland In Union's slanted question as a substitute for a genuine independence question, and I remain baffled as to why, because by this point they know perfectly well that it always, literally always, produces purported "independence support" several points lower than genuine independence support in conventional polls.  This is precisely the sort of stunt that brings the polling industry into disrepute, and Survation do have to accept some direct responsibility for it, because they're not usually shy about standing up to paying clients about the wording of poll questions that are potentially unclear, confusing or biased.  Indeed on headline voting intention questions they would generally say a flat no to the client changing the standard question, even by a single word.  My guess is that they very foolishly allowed a precedent to be set and afterwards found it impossible to say no to repeat runnings of the dodgy question.  However, the good news is that the 59-41 "pro-UK" split is very much within the normal range for the question, and thus lends support to the impression from the recent Norstat poll that support for independence has remained relatively stable since the general election two months ago.

Of much more interest are the Holyrood voting intention numbers from the poll, because Survation haven't distorted them by allowing their client to rewrite the question.  Not for the first time, though, I'm slightly confused by the reported results from the press release, because they don't seem to tally up with what would appear to be the definitive figures from the newly-published datasets on the Survation website - at first I thought it may just be an innocent mistake and that someone was looking at the wrong table, but no.  Having re-read the press release, it's obvious that Scotland in Union are intentionally playing silly buggers. Here are the real results, which contrary to the impression given by the press release actually show the SNP one point ahead on the constituency ballot.  

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:

SNP 31%

Labour 30%

Conservatives 12%

Reform UK 9%

Liberal Democrats 9%

Greens 6%

Alba 1%

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:

Labour 28%

SNP 27%

Conservatives 12%

Greens 10%

Liberal Democrats 10%

Reform UK 9%

Alba 2%

Now that we know the real numbers, it doesn't actually feel like a radically different story from the recent Norstat poll - for the SNP to have any sort of lead in what should be Labour's honeymoon period is an extraordinary achievement and probably bodes well for what we can expect once the Labour government's unpopularity grows.  However, although I'm optimistic about the SNP remaining the largest single party in 2026 and possibly remaining in office, I'm not at all optimistic about the pro-independence majority being retained, and a big part of the reason for that is the 9% vote share for Reform UK, which would easily win Farage's party list seats.  This is one of the big problems we have with media bias - it's much easier for an anti-independence "insurgent" party to make a breakthrough due to the passive benefits of UK-wide coverage, whereas a pro-independence party will by definition by Scottish-only and will struggle to get a look-in.

This is a poor poll for Alba, there's no getting away from that, and it confirms what I and others pointed out about the recent Norstat poll, ie. that the 5% figure supposedly showing Alba on course for list seats was an illusion caused by Norstat's house effect.  Norstat is the successor firm to Panelbase, which all the way back to 2021 has repeatedly overestimated Alba's share of the vote, possibly due to the chance factor of having a disproportionate number of committed Alba supporters signed up to their polling panel.

In my blogpost last night about the Alba leadership's decision out of the blue to strip me of one of my three elected positions within the party (something which as far as I can see they have no right under the party constitution to do), I made reference to one of the uglier features of Alba internal politics recently, namely the leadership's cultivation of a "stab in the back" mythology that blames all the party's ills on a "wee gang" of "malcontent" ex-members.  In a recent email to Alba members, the party chair Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh made a song and dance about the Norstat numbers and then said this: "Inevitably, all signs of success from ALBA will be met by a handful of ex and disgruntled members who, when not fighting with each other, spend their lives on X tweeting offensive material about their former colleagues."

Don't shoot the messenger here, but as today's poll shows, those "signs of success" are largely imaginary.  Alba have been stuck on 1-2% in every election they have fought so far, and they remain stuck on roughly 2%.  The past and present do not necessarily predict the future, but as things stand Alba are not on course to win list seats, let alone to get close to Alex Salmond's stated target of 15% of the list vote.  That may be a brutal truth that people don't want to hear, but it is the truth.  Scotland desperately needs a real independence force with substantial list representation, but if Alba are going to achieve that or even play a partial role in achieving that, a fundamental rethink is going to be required, and the sooner we face up to that fact, the better.

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