Alex Salmond, 1954-2024

Hopefully it goes without saying that my earlier blogpost today, which briefly mentioned Alex Salmond, was written before I heard the awful news.  I went out for a walk a few minutes ago, and my phone started buzzing with Whatsapp messages from Alba members in a state of complete shock and bewilderment.  

I have no problem at all in concentrating on the positives in this post, because I can pay no finer tribute to any politician than that they were the person who originally converted me to the cause of Scottish independence.  I'm sure I must be one of tens of thousands of Scots, perhaps hundreds of thousands, who can say the same of Mr Salmond, which speaks volumes about his communication skills and powers of persuasion.  I can pinpoint the exact moment of my conversion - it was an edition of Election Call presented I believe by Nick Ross, during the 1992 general election (when I was still too young to vote), and Mr Salmond was given the chance to answer viewers' questions about independence at unusual length, which he did very fully and convincingly.  At some point towards the end of the programme, it was as if my objections just suddenly ran out and I said to myself "yeah, I agree with that", and I haven't changed my mind since.

In the years afterwards he was my political hero, running rings around Labour politicians in knockabout debate but also courageously going where others feared to tread, saying what needed to be said about the Kosovo and Iraq conflicts, and saying it in pitch perfect terms.

I was devastated when he stepped down as SNP leader in 2000, and I literally punched the air in delight when I heard he would be standing as leader again in 2004, just hours before nominations were due to close.  I knew that might make all the difference, and by God it did.  Without his comeback the SNP would never have taken power in 2007, we would never have had an independence referendum in 2014, and the extra devolved powers would never have come to Scotland after the referendum.  If Donald Dewar was the father of devolution, Alex Salmond was the father of its post-2014 deepening.

For my money the crowning glory of his career was his unforgettable performance against Alistair Darling in the second referendum debate, which came so close to winning outright independence for Scotland.  You can see an excerpt below.

While I take a few days off to prepare properly for my Alba "disciplinary" hearing, it may be a good time to give the 2024 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser one last big push

I may not be blogging much over the next few days, because I've still got to compile my written submission for my Alba disciplinary hearing, and the deadline is fast approaching.  I still find it hard to keep a straight face when I write the words "disciplinary hearing" given that what I'm accused of is so unbelievably vague and ultimately amounts to "making criticisms of how the Alba Party is currently run, in a way that the leadership finds irritating", which in any sort of genuinely democratic party would actually be something to be proud of, not to be "disciplined" for.  Nevertheless, in spite of the inherent absurdity of the situation, I do intend to take both the disciplinary and likely appeals process extremely seriously, and thus to devote the necessary time to it.  I most certainly don't criticise any of the people who 'jumped before they were pushed', because I now know as well as anyone the stress and potential mental health impact caused by a vexatious and/or malicious disciplinary process.  However, the fact that people have 'voluntarily' left, at least nominally, has given their detractors the excuse to dismiss them as "a wee gang of malcontents" who were always hostile to the party (which could not be further from the truth, incidentally - many of the people who have left were, until they started to be bullied or victimised, extremely committed to the party and personally loyal to Alex Salmond).  

If the leadership have already decided to get rid of me, as Yvonne Ridley claimed a few weeks ago, I want it to be abundantly clear to everyone that I am not voluntarily leaving, that my departure is 100% due to an expulsion that will be incredibly difficult to justify, and that if the expulsion hadn't occurred I would have stayed in Alba indefinitely.  Indeed if Chris McEleny hadn't arbitrarily suspended my party membership pending the hearing, I would currently be running as a candidate in the Alba internal elections, both for Membership Support Convener and for an ordinary NEC slot.  So for those reasons I do need to 'go through the disciplinary process properly', even if I strongly suspect the outcome is already set in stone.

Given that there'll be a natural pause in blogging while I write my disciplinary submission and prepare my verbal presentation for the hearing itself, this may be a good moment to give the Scot Goes Pop annual fundraiser for 2024 a last big push.  There are only two-and-a-half months left in the year, and it won't be all that long before I'll have to start thinking about a 2025 fundraiser.  But as things stand, the running total on the 2024 GoFundMe page is only around halfway towards its target figure.  In reality the situation is a bit better than that, because there have also been direct donations via Paypal, but it's fair to say that I'm still a long way short of where I need to be to secure the blog's future.  I've been continually lurching from mini-crisis to mini-crisis for about three years now, and although I've always been able to just about keep things afloat with these repeated appeals, I can't guarantee that will always be the case.  To use the well-worn cliché, if everyone reading this blogpost today chipped in a couple of pounds, the problem would be solved within 24 hours and I wouldn't even need to mention fundraising for a few months.  But of course in the real world it doesn't work that way.  

Many thanks to everyone who has already donated this year, and if you have done please just ignore this post.  But if you haven't donated yet, and if you find Scot Goes Pop useful and would like to help it continue, here are the various options - 

Card payments can be made via the GoFundMe crowdfunding page HERE.

Direct Paypal payments can be made to my Paypal email address:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

I know a small number of people prefer direct bank transfer - for the necessary details, please email me.  My contact email address is different from my Paypal address and can be found on my Twitter profile or in the sidebar of this blog (desktop version of the site only).

"We were supposed to have momentum!" laments Anas Sarwar, as Labour flatline in one by-election and go backwards in another - results that are consistent with a nationwide lead for the SNP

Last week brought two SNP by-election wins in Dundee, this week has brought two Labour by-election wins in North Lanarkshire, including one in a ward where the SNP topped the poll last time around.  But in actual fact the underlying message of both weeks is identical.  The net swings to Labour are small enough to point to a small SNP lead nationally, which is a far cry from the typical pattern in by-elections prior to 4th July.

Mossend and Holytown by-election result, first preferences (10th November 2024):

Labour 36.5% (-2.9)

SNP 34.8% (-7.8)

Reform UK 15.6% (n/a)

Conservatives 7.5% (-5.3)

Liberal Democrats 4.9% (n/a)

UKIP 0.7% (n/a)

Fortissat by-election result, first preferences (10th November 2024):

Labour 36.6% (+0.1)

Progressive Change 24.0% (n/a)

SNP 20.3% (-10.6)

British Unionist Party 10.9% (-7.9)

Conservatives 5.6% (-5.6)

Liberal Democrats 2.6% (n/a)

The swing to Labour in Fortissat was 5.4%, and in Mossend & Holytown it was a mere 2.5%.  That averages out as a 3.9% swing across the two by-elections, which if applied to the whole of Scotland would leave the SNP in the lead by around four percentage points - very similar to what we've been seeing in opinion polls recently.

Furthermore, the small Progressive Change party that performed so strongly in the Fortissat ward is essentially a straight breakaway from the SNP, so it would seem logical that it took more votes from the SNP than from Labour.  If so, the pro-Labour swing may even be slightly exaggerated due to local factors.

Reform UK's good showings remain a cause for concern, but we can at least celebrate a setback for the hardline Brit Nat BUP in the ward that is the closest thing they have to a heartland (they got a councillor elected there in 2022).

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

My US election dilemma (advice is welcome)

Those of you of a certain vintage may remember that the Guardian newspaper was widely regarded as having made a complete fool of itself twenty years ago when it tried to influence the US presidential election by getting its readers to send personalised letters to voters in Clark County, Ohio, urging a vote for John Kerry rather than George W Bush.  If it had any effect at all, the perception was that it slightly increased Bush's margin of victory in Ohio, because people disapproved of outside interference in American affairs.

Anyone who was involved in that miscalculation may draw some satisfaction from learning that the boot is apparently on the other foot this year, and people from the US are sending handwritten notes to registered voters overseas urging them to vote.  I received the above note from a lady in California a couple of weeks ago, and although it doesn't say "please vote against Trump", I do detect a bit of a subtext there! 

But here is my dilemma. I have a history of voting for left-wing third-party candidates in presidential elections, but in 2016 and 2020 I held my nose and voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden respectively, on the basis that any election in which Donald Trump is on the ballot is an emergency and you don't muck around.

The same logic applies this year, but I just could not have imagined the scale of the Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the Biden/Harris administration's seemingly unconditional backing for the genocidal Netanyahu regime.  Any vote for Harris thus feels like an endorsement of the genocide.  Additionally, I felt happier about voting for Clinton and Biden because they seemed to have abandoned their previous support for the death penalty, which is a key issue for me, but I gather opposition to the death penalty has been removed from the Democratic platform this year, and Harris is being evasive about her own position.

I'll have to make a decision very soon, so I'd be interested in your thoughts.  What would you do?  Vote against the genocide by voting for the Green candidate Jill Stein, or vote against Trump by voting for Kamala Harris?

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

James Cleverly's elimination is the perfect illustration of what can go catastrophically wrong if you try to "game the voting system"

Very long-term readers will recall that in past Holyrood elections, especially 2016, I cautioned at considerable length against the dangers of trying to "game the voting system".  Prominent Green supporters and RISE both argued that it was perfectly possible and even necessary to game the system, because the SNP were supposedly "guaranteed" to win at least 65 constituency seats, and therefore any SNP votes on the list would be "wasted".  It was claimed that SNP supporters had some kind of duty to abandon their first-choice party on the list and instead vote for a second-choice pro-indy party.

The point I made was that the list vote was actually the more important of the two votes, because the overall composition of parliament is roughly proportional to how people vote on the list ballot, not on the constituency ballot.  Therefore, in general, people would be very foolish not to vote for their first-choice party on the list.  If anything, it's the constituency ballot that lends itself to tactical voting, but if you try to play silly buggers on the list there's a severe danger of ending up with a perverse outcome.  Yes, in theory it might be possible to game the system by voting for a second choice party on the list, but only in conditions that don't and can't exist in the real world - ie. 100% opinion poll accuracy, foreknowledge of how everybody else is going to vote, and certainty of exactly how many constituency seats that will translate into for each party.

This position of "vote for your first choice party on the list, don't listen to the siren voices telling you it's safe or necessary to abandon your first-choice party on the list" was cynically misrepresented for years by the usual suspects such as Kevin Williamson, Mike Small and Stewart Bremner as "James Kelly trying to suppress the Greens and RISE by pushing the 'both votes SNP' or 'SNP 1&2' line". And that really was an appallingly cynical misrepresentation, because they carried on doing it even after I repeatedly pointed out that I didn't use the phrases 'both votes SNP' or 'SNP 1&2', and that I actively objected to the latter because it misleadingly implies the constituency and list ballots are 'first preference' and 'second preference' votes.  I also pointed out that my advice to anyone whose first choice party was the Greens was that they should vote Green on the list, which was plainly not consistent with the idea that I was some sort of "both votes SNP" drone.  I simply objected to SNP supporters being duped into using their most important vote for another party - and I had no control over the fact that ultimately it was only SNP supporters who were being targeted by the "game the system" scam.

Although yesterday's bizarre outcome in the Conservative leadership election took place under a completely different voting system, it's nevertheless the perfect illustration of some of the points I used to make about what can go wrong if you try to game the system.  What seems to have happened is that some James Cleverly supporters looked at the result of the penultimate ballot on Tuesday, concluded that their man was guaranteed to make the members' run-off, and that it was therefore safe and smart for them to vote for one of the other candidates.  Some of them voted for their second-choice candidate to try to eliminate whoever they regarded as the most objectionable candidate, while others may even have voted for their least favourite candidate on the logic that this would make the members' run-off more winnable for Cleverly.  The latter group must feel particularly idiotic now, because far too many of them attempted the tactic and ended up accidentally eliminating Cleverly from the race altogether.  In other words, they assumed perfect foreknowledge of how everyone else was going to vote, and discovered the hard way that such foreknowledge simply isn't possible in the real world.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

The Tories opt for a hard right turn - as they almost always do

Well, if you needed any evidence that the betting markets are not some sort of predictive God, or that sudden movements on them are not proof that punters have inside knowledge, here it is (yet again).  Robert Jenrick dropped like a stone on the markets earlier, probably on the logic that James Cleverly had enormous momentum behind him after his performance at the party conference (and in yesterday's ballot), and that Jenrick supporters would defect to Badenoch to stop Cleverly.  That actually was a reasonable enough assumption, but it hasn't happened.

Kemi Badenoch 42
Robert Jenrick 41

James Cleverly 37

I can't say I'm sorry about Cleverly's elimination, because in a field of insufferable candidates I find him the most insufferable of the lot, but this does mean that whatever happens from here the Tories will once again be choosing a radical right leader, as they did so successfully with Liz Truss two years ago.  Unless Badenoch stumbles badly, it seems highly likely that she'll be the winner, and I suppose the one consolation is that she's known for her gender critical views - but she's an extremist on many other issues.  

On the ECHR issue, which I think might ultimately have a decisive role to play in Scotland becoming independent, Jenrick is committed to withdrawal and Badenoch says it "might" be necessary to withdraw.  

I wonder if Allison Pearson's stroppy column threatening to defect to Reform UK if Cleverly won, and other contributions like hers, may have played a part in Tory MPs' mysterious last minute cold feet about Cleverly.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Crossover nears: Labour's GB-wide lead over the Tories cut to just one point

The batch of three GB-wide polls that I mentioned the other day were ominous for Starmer, because they showed Labour had lower percentage support than under Jeremy Corbyn in the crushing 2019 defeat.  But at least they still showed Labour in the 30s, and with a cushion of sorts over the Tories.  Neither of those things are true in the new More In Common poll, which has the worst results for Labour in years and years.

More In Common GB-wide poll:

Labour 29%

Conservatives 28%

Reform UK 19%

Liberal Democrats 11%

Greens 7%

SNP 2%

Now that we've seen a poll that is a "statistical tie", it's surely only a matter of time until some poll somewhere along the line shows an outright Tory lead.  It's also possible that once the Tories get into the lead, they could stay there throughout much of the course of this parliament, building a clear expectation of a change of government in 2028 or 2029 - that would be in line with the logic of Labour having got off to such a record-breaking awful start in government.  But clearly much will depend on whether the Tories elect a leader who the public regard as credible.  And on that subject, the result of the penultimate MPs' ballot has just been announced - 

James Cleverly 39

Robert Jenrick 31

Kemi Badenoch 30

Tom Tugendhat 20

I suggested on Sunday that Jenrick supporters might look at the ConHome poll, which showed that Badenoch was the only person who could beat Cleverly in the members' run-off, and reluctantly switch to Badenoch on a tactical basis.  It looks like that may have happened to a very small extent, because Jenrick has lost two votes and Badenoch has gained three.  There had been chatter that maybe Jenrick might "lend" some votes to Tugendhat to try to engineer a Jenrick v Tugendhat run-off, which the poll suggested was the only winnable scenario for Jenrick.  But that was never going to work, because Jenrick simply didn't have enough votes in hand to get both himself and Tugendhat over the line.

So the only real question now is whether a few more Jenrick supporters might defect to Badenoch, because if they don't, Cleverly will probably sail to victory.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

"We are SO disappointed in you, Keir and Anas": Scots voters say they expected Labour to behave better

As you may have seen, there's a GB-wide YouGov poll on the topic of how sleazy the new Labour government is, and unsurprisingly the verdict of voters is: VERY sleazy.  The only sliver of consolation for Starmer's mob is that the previous Tory government is regarded (albeit by a slender margin) as even sleazier, but that doesn't apply to the two Prime Ministers - Keir Starmer is regarded as sleazier than Rishi Sunak, and that verdict is shared by the Scottish subsample (30% of Scottish respondents say Starmer is the sleazier of the two, 28% say Sunak).

If I was a Scottish Labour supporter, though, the result from the poll that would terrify me is the one about expectations: did voters expect Labour to be less sleazy than they turned out to be?  In Scotland, there's a significantly greater percentage of people who simply didn't see the Labour sleaze coming - 

Which of the following best describes how you feel the new Labour government has performed on the issue of upholding standards in public office? (All GB respondents)

I expected them to behave well but they have behaved worse than I expected: 38%

I expected them to behave badly but they have behaved better than I expected: 3%

I expected them to behave well and they have done: 15%

I expected them to behave badly and they have done: 25%

Which of the following best describes how you feel the new Labour government has performed on the issue of upholding standards in public office? (Respondents in Scotland only)

I expected them to behave well but they have behaved worse than I expected: 46%

I expected them to behave badly but they have behaved better than I expected: 3%

I expected them to behave well and they have done: 15%

I expected them to behave badly and they have done: 17%

Labour only won in Scotland by the narrow margin of 35% to 30% in July, and if that was at a point where the public had a much higher estimation of them, it's not hard to see why they now seem to have fallen behind the SNP.  There also has to be a question mark over whether they can regain the advantage over the next couple of years, because once a good reputation is lost, it's very difficult to recover it.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Netanyahu fans on Twitter claim with a straight face that they might have voted Alba if it hadn't been for me. If I've single-handedly cost Alba the pro-genocide vote, my humblest apologies.

There are numerous ironies to my potential forthcoming expulsion from the Alba Party, which if it happens will ultimately be due to a blogpost I wrote in April arguing for democratisation of the party's internal structures - something which the leadership were seemingly more hellbent on thwarting than I could ever have dreamed possible.  Many of those ironies relate to Alba's scathing reaction to disciplinary action that the SNP has taken against its own members - for example, Fergus Ewing's one-week suspension from the SNP parliamentary group.  However unjustifiable the action against Mr Ewing was, and I do believe it was wholly wrong, a one-week suspension plainly pales into insignificance compared to the draconian action taken against numerous Alba members recently, including expulsions and lengthy suspensions. I myself have already been suspended from the party for longer than one week without even having faced a disciplinary hearing yet, and that's been purely at the arbitrary whim of one man - Chris McEleny.

However, as far as the ironies were concerned, nothing could have prepared me for what happened last night.  I got into an exchange with Nicole Lampert, a London-based "journalist" specialising in pro-Israel propaganda and genocide apologism.  She was going off on one about the fact that a pro-Palestinian counter-demonstration was audible during what she described as a "vigil" in Glasgow to "mourn the dead" of October 7th last year.  "Give us 24 hours to mourn our dead in peace!" she histrionically demanded.  My question to her was whether pro-Israel counter-protests should be banned for the next year to allow Palestinians to mourn their dead in peace, because of course almost every day for the next year will be the first anniversary of atrocities committed by Israel.

She then claimed that the pro-Palestinian protesters in Glasgow had been shouting anti-Semitic language, which left her on fairly weak ground, because she had already posted what she clearly regarded as a "damning video", and yet all that could be heard in that video were the familiar slogans "from the river to the sea" (which cannot be anti-Semitic because Netanyahu has used it at press conferences) and "free free Palestine" (which is perfectly consistent with support for Palestinian freedom in the context of a two-state solution).  Oh no, that wasn't what she was talking about, she clarified. She was instead talking about anti-Semitic language that couldn't be heard in the video.  She alleged that "Scottish Jews" had been called "genocidal scum and baby-killers".  Did I think that was acceptable, she demanded to know.

I pointed out that she had supplied zero evidence of that language having been used, and also that even if she could find any evidence of it, she would have to establish that it was actually being directed at "Scottish Jews" rather than at the genocidal Israeli government - because of course if it was the latter, the language used would not only be acceptable but entirely accurate. That was the final straw for her - unable to grasp any distinction between Scottish Jews and Benjamin Netanyahu, she hilariously 'reported' me to Chris McEleny and Neale Hanvey, having noticed on my Twitter profile that I'm an elected member of three Alba committees.  "You and I have our differences on Israel/Palestine but this guy claims to be one of your lot and SURELY THIS CAN'T BE ALBA POLICY!!!!" she screamed.

Desperately trying to keep a straight face, I explained the irony of her reporting me to someone who already has me suspended from the party, albeit for radically different reasons from the ones she might approve of.  But over the next few hours, Ms Lampert was followed by at least four pro-Netanyahu accounts all claiming earnestly to have seriously considered voting Alba but declaring that THEY WOULD NEVER DO IT NOW BECAUSE OF THE VIEWS OF THAT BASTARD JAMES KELLY, THE ALBA COMMITTEE MEMBER.  By that stage, I didn't even bother pointing out the comical irony of them saying that about someone who is suspended from the Alba Party, because there comes a point where all you can do is step back and quietly marvel at the sheer absurdity of a situation.

I must say I had no idea there was such a potential groundswell for Alba among pro-genocide voters (didn't they think to check party policy?), and if I've single-handedly managed to screw that up in what may be my last few days as a party member, what can I say.  I'm so, so sorry, guys.

So were the pro-Palestinian protesters right to audibly disrupt the Glasgow "vigil"? I probably wouldn't have advised it, but there again you have to take into account what the true nature of the event was.  Jackson Carlaw posted a photo of himself making a speech at the "vigil", in which he apparently argued strongly against any end to Israel's genocidal actions until the hostages are released.  The fact that a right-wing politician was even invited to make such a speech suggests that there may have been an agenda that went a lot further than simply "mourning the dead".

Tory MPs may have to *act* Cleverly to *stop* Cleverly

What I'm about to say will to some extent contradict my previous post, because looking at the latest Tory members' poll from ConHome, I really do struggle to see why Robert Jenrick is still favourite to win the leadership contest.  (And as of this moment he is still favourite - I've just checked.)

There's going to be a head-to-head members' ballot between just two candidates, and regardless of whether he is up against Kemi Badenoch or James Cleverly, the poll shows Jenrick losing by a wide margin.

Jenrick v Badenoch

Kemi Badenoch 53%

Robert Jenrick 33%

Jenrick v Cleverly

James Cleverly 54%

Robert Jenrick 36%

The only candidate Jenrick would beat in a head-to-head is Tom Tugendhat, which is no use to him because Tugendhat is plainly not going to be his opponent.  So precisely how is Jenrick supposed to emerge from this process as leader?  In spite of what the betting odds say, I don't think he can, unless the poll is completely wrong.

The poll does keep alive the possibility of James Cleverly being stopped, though, because Badenoch would narrowly beat him in a head-to-head - 

Badenoch v Cleverly:

Kemi Badenoch 48%

James Cleverly 42%

So logically what may now happen is that hard-right MPs might ditch Jenrick in favour of Badenoch in the remaining ballots to engineer a Badenoch v Cleverly run-off, which appears to be the only way Cleverly might yet lose.

Arguably Cleverly should currently be listed as favourite, with Badenoch as second favourite and Jenrick a distant third.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

The message from Britain-wide opinion polls is consistent - Labour now have less support than they did in 2019 when they were heavily defeated under Jeremy Corbyn

The latest batch of three GB-wide opinion polls all have similar fieldwork dates, and are remarkably consistent in their findings - 

Opinium (2nd-4th October 2024):

Labour 31% 

Conservatives 24%

Reform UK 20%

Liberal Democrats 11%

Greens 8%

SNP 3%

BMG (2nd-3rd October 2024):

Labour 30% 

Conservatives 25%

Reform UK 20%

Liberal Democrats 13%

Greens 7%

SNP 3%

Techne (2nd-3rd October 2024):

Labour 31% 

Conservatives 23%

Reform UK 18%

Liberal Democrats 13%

Greens 7%

SNP 2%

It's safe to assume that all of these polls have been weighted by recalled vote from the general election in July, which makes it almost certain that the drop in Labour's support is real.  The fieldwork was confined to Great Britain, ie. Northern Ireland was excluded, which means the baseline figure from July is not Labour's UK-wide vote of 34%, but their GB vote of 35%.  So their vote is down by around 4% or 5%, which is a pretty significant drop after only three months.

Yes, they do remain ahead, and on paper they would probably win an election if it was held tomorrow, but I think there's quite a compelling argument that in an underlying sense they're already behind.  It's incredibly difficult to believe that in four or five years' time they'd be able to win a general election on their current level of support, which is for example lower than the 33% they took in GB under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership in the crushing defeat of 2019.  The combined Tory/Reform UK vote ranges between 41% and 45% in these three polls, and if that somehow consolidates behind a single bloc over the coming years, even at this stage Labour look like toast.

But will it consolidate?  There was a comparable situation at the 1983 election, when the Tories won an artificially large landslide thanks to a near even split in the opposition vote between Labour and the SDP-Liberal Alliance. Most people probably assumed at the time that the division would resolve itself over the course of four or five years, but it didn't really - in 1987 Labour clawed back a little bit of support from the Alliance but nowhere near enough.  So there are no guarantees, but with Robert Jenrick remaining the clear favourite in the Tory leadership contest, and with Jenrick's platform so closely mimicking that of Reform, there does appear to be a clear route-map towards a reunited right-wing vote.  Maybe Jenrick and Farage will agree an electoral pact, or maybe there won't even be a need for that because Reform UK's current supporters will decide Jenrick is good enough to be getting on with and will swing behind the Tories.

The relevance for Scotland, of course, is that there could within a couple of years be a clear expectation of a hard-right government committed to withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights.  That could start to make the SNP's offer of independence look a lot more attractive than Labour's meaningless waffle about "the change that Scotland needs".

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk