Final YouGov MRP projection of the campaign suggests pro-independence parties will have 60% of the seats in the new Scottish Parliament

Thanks to Marcia for alerting me to YouGov's update (the second and almost certainly final one) of their MRP projection for Holyrood.  It leaves us none the wiser about the direction of travel because it shows the SNP slipping back a bit, whereas More In Common's MRP update showed the SNP gaining a little ground.  

YouGov MRP seats projection:

SNP 62 

Reform UK 19

Labour 17 

Greens 16

Liberal Democrats 8

Conservatives 7

As far as I can see, the vote shares are not available yet, but it does sound very much from the Times write-up that any dip in the SNP's support has been minimal, and that the SNP seat count has only dropped back because YouGov are picking up an increase in unionist tactical voting as polling day approaches.  The Times are claiming that this means the SNP's campaigning on independence has "backfired" because it's riled up unionists, but frankly that is a load of utter tripe - there have been any number of previous elections in which the SNP have tried to play it safe by mentioning independence as little as possible, but the unionist parties have still managed to whip their own voters up into a frenzy about the subject.  It would have happened no matter what the SNP had done - and as we've seen, the great benefit of the SNP's own focus on independence is that it's kept the Yes vote high during the campaign.

For those of you who don't recall, the previous YouGov update had the SNP on 67 seats, which was an overall majority, whereas 62 is three short of a majority.  However, the pro-independence parties in combination would have an extremely healthy 60% of all seats, ie. 78 in total.  And the SNP are potentially within reach of a single-party majority, because it's obvious from the write-up that some of the seats that have flipped since the last update are still extremely close.  Eastwood, for example, is said to be staying with the Tories by a "razor-thin margin".  The Greens are supposedly on course to win two seats, one in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh, so even if the SNP just manage to hold those two, that would get them to 64, just one short of a majority. 

It's the Liberal Democrats that are apparently doing a lot of the damage - they are now projected to win both Edinburgh Northern and Strathkelvin & Bearsden.  But remember that Edinburgh Northern is a completely new seat, which must increase the level of uncertainty, while in Strathkelvin & Bearsden the Lib Dems were actually in *fourth* place last time around, some thirty points or so behind the SNP.

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My latest constituency profiles for The National are Stirling and Strathkelvin & Bearsden.

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