Polling respectability for Alba after the Ash Regan defection

Someone made a sarcastic comment on my previous post about the new opinion polls, along the lines of "Alba cooking with gas, James?"  No idea what that was all about, because the numbers are actually perfectly decent for Alba in the wake of Ash Regan's defection - 

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot (Redfield & Wilton) :

SNP 34% (-1)

Labour 30% (+1)

Conservatives 22% (+2)

Liberal Democrats 8% (-2)

Alba 2% (+2)

Reform UK 2% (+1)

Greens 2% (-1)

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:

SNP 28% (+2)

Labour 27% (+2)

Conservatives 21% (-4)

Greens 9% (-3)

Liberal Democrats 8% (-4)

Reform UK 4% (+2)

Alba 3% (-)

Of course this underscores what I was saying a couple of weeks ago that there is no evidence that Alba are currently on course to win list seats, but with two-and-a-half years still to go until the Holyrood election it's plainly not an impossible task - doubling their list vote from 3% to 6% should get them a fair number of seats, while one or two seats might conceivably be won even if they were on only 4%.

There's also a point worth making here about the repeated taunt that defectors to Alba are refusing to trigger by-elections because they think they would lose.  Even leaving aside the fact that very, very few defectors in history have resigned their seats (Dick Douglas MP certainly didn't resign when he defected from Labour to the SNP in 1990), there's also the fact that Ash Regan would be fighting a first-past-the-post by-election if she resigned her seat, whereas if she waits until 2026 the most likely route for her re-election is via the list, which is many orders of magnitude less difficult.  Similarly, if Chris Cullen resigned his council seat, he'd effectively have to win his ward outright in the subsequent by-election, which is far more difficult than the task he'll face in a multi-member election in 2027.  People are being a bit mischievous and not comparing like with like.

A couple of other points of note from the Redfield & Wilton poll - firstly, although Keir Starmer has a significant lead over Humza Yousaf on net approval ratings, his lead over Rishi Sunak on the "who would make the best Prime Minister?" question is weirdly low at just 40% to 30%.  This is Scotland we're talking about, where Tory leaders are loathed at the best of times, and this is not the best of times for the Tories.  Starmer, it's safe to say, is not setting the heather alight.

Secondly, one of our resident trolls claimed earlier that the poll showed Yes on 45% of the vote on the indyref question, ie. no improvement since 2014.  'Fraid not, chum.

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 47% (-2)

No 53% (+2)

Two more post-Rutherglen polls: one has the SNP six points behind, the other has them level

The evidence is now beginning to suggest that the SNP did not get away with their Rutherglen defeat, and at least in the short-term it was never particularly likely that they would.  In terms of seats, at least, they are clearly heading for defeat next year, and it seems likely that only drastic action will avert that outcome.  Perversely, though, the SNP leadership are in steady as she goes mode.

Scottish voting intentions for the next UK general election (YouGov / Scottish Election Study, 20th-25th October 2023):

Labour 38%

SNP 32%

Conservatives 16%

Liberal Democrats 5%

Greens 4%

Scottish voting intentions for the next UK general election (Redfield & Wilton, 29th-30th October 2023):

SNP 32% (-2)

Labour 32% (-)

Conservatives 23% (+2)

Liberal Democrats 8% (-1)

Greens 2% (-)

I haven't included percentage changes for the YouGov poll, because on past form the Scottish Election Study's involvement will probably be claimed as meaning that it doesn't technically count as an official YouGov poll.

Someone attempted to post a comment on this blog the other day claiming that Humza Yousaf is now "the most popular politician in Britain".  I didn't publish it because I assumed it was disinformation, albeit of the wishful thinking variety - it must be tempting for Yousaf's supporters to assume that their admiration of his handling of the situation in Gaza is bound to be shared by the wider public and must have transformed his image entirely.  The truth seems to be somewhere in the middle - Redfield & Wilton show his net personal ratings improving to their highest level so far, but he's still in negative territory at -4.  That puts him fifteen points behind Keir Starmer.  So, no, I'm afraid he's nothing like the most popular politician in Britain, even if Starmer plainly does not deserve to be ahead of him.

That said, it's obviously harder to make the case that Yousaf is the SNP's biggest problem (even though ultimately he is) when he's had something of a bounce.  It's a nightmare combination, really - the polling simultaneously shows why the SNP can't just carry on as they are while giving them a ready-made excuse to do just that.

Alba are starting to cook with gas

I've made this point before, I think, but the Wikipedia article on the Alba Party is an abomination, obviously written by people who are extremely hostile. The first paragraph concludes with the words "No Alba Party candidate has been elected at any election", which is a reasonable point to make, but not with such pejorative wording and with such gratuitously prominent placement.  There's a section about criticism of the party, which again is totally reasonably and normal, but the length of it and the proportion of the article that it takes up is absurd - it's an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach.  There's also a potentially catty reference to Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh being a right-of-centre politician, which I'm not sure is an accurate characterisation, notwithstanding the different political allegiance she had in her youth.

But in one particular way the article has just improved tremendously, because the graphic box at the top now displays the fact that Alba for the first time have representation at all three tiers of government - local councils, Holyrood and Westminster.  Three days ago, it was only one.  People who were looking forward to Alba's demise will now have to start to accept that it isn't going to happen any time soon.  Of course they'll continue making the point that none of Alba's representatives were elected under Alba colours, and that's a hurdle the party will have to get over sooner or later, but what all of this has done is buy Alba some time.  Ash Regan will be in office until at least 2026, and Chris Cullen will be there until 2027.

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What puzzles me about Lorna Slater's now-notorious comment about independence not being a red line for any deal between the Greens and Labour is the vehemence with which she said "absolutely not".  Why not "never say never" or "who knows what might happen"?  It's like she thinks it's still pre-indyref days when Green supporters used to actively reward their leaders for blasting the presumptuousness of anyone who thought the SNP should be regarded as the only game in town due to independence.  I remember James Mackenzie back in the early 2010s openly preaching the gospel of equidistance between the SNP and Labour, and not running into any trouble for it.  But the world has moved on - many, many Green supporters see their party as every bit as much an independence party, every bit as much a vehicle-for-delivering-independence, as the SNP itself.  To hear such enthusiastic talk about parking independence for five years to install a Labour government is going to make some supporters wonder if their perception of what the Greens are quite matches the reality.

Greater Alba: Angus MacNeil squares the circle of being aligned while remaining independent

In his warm-up for Alex Salmond's speech yesterday, Kenny MacAskill said that it was taking place early because there were more highlights than usual to come later on in the conference.  Within 30 or 40 minutes it became clear that one of those highlights was the dramatic announcement of Ash Regan's defection, but I did wonder if his use of the plural meant there might be more of the same to come on Day 2.  And in a sense there was - although Angus MacNeil didn't join Alba, it was announced that he and Alba would be cooperating under a joint banner.

One of my concerns about Mr MacNeil's departure from the SNP was that even if he held his seat at the next election, it would be an ephemeral achievement without any wider national legacy because of his decision to run as an independent and not join Alba.  This new arrangement may be a neat way of squaring the circle because he'll still have the local advantages of independent status, while any win will now be seen as a victory for a "Greater Alba" electoral alliance and may contribute to a snowball effect in Alba's favour.  It also helpfully creates a bigger tent that other SNP parliamentarians might consider joining even if they have reservations about defecting direct to Alba.

The media reporting of this development was strangely vague, and I couldn't work out whether Alba and Mr MacNeil were setting up a formal joint parliamentary group at Westminster, or whether the arrangement is looser than that.  On the face of it a joint group would make perfect sense, because I seem to vaguely recall three MPs is the minimum threshold to form an official group in the Commons.

Update on the Alba internal elections

Ash Regan's defection was in fact the second big surprise of the day for me in the Alba conference hall, because I had been waiting to hear my own result in the Membership Support Convener election, and also for the start of the Ordinary Member ballot for the NEC.  Neither of those things happened in the end - all of the Office Bearer elections have been nullified and will be re-run in the coming weeks, with the NEC election taking place during National Council (although I presume that will still be an online vote for anyone who registered for conference).

There was a lengthy explanation given for this totally unexpected decision, but it was given during private session (before the livestream commenced), so I'd better not repeat what it was.  But the bottom line is that I'm afraid you'll have to put up with yet more shameless self-promotion from me in the next few weeks!  From a personal point of view, I have mixed feelings about this development - no matter whether I'd had a good result or a bad result today, any votes I received would have been hard-won and honestly-won, and it's frustrating they haven't even been recorded.  But on the other hand, there's now an opportunity to do better on the second bite of the cherry.  When I arrived in the hall this morning, every single seat had a huge pile of glossy, professional-looking leaflets from various NEC candidates, and I suddenly thought "how was I ever supposed to compete against this?"  I now have a bit of time to try to come up with an answer to that question.

The game-changer: Alba goes to Holyrood

When I was a student, I remember reading a book about the (short) history of the SDP.  It intriguingly stated that the only Tory MP to defect to the party had crossed the floor "literally", which I took to mean that he had reached the end of a speech, announced he was defecting, and theatrically walked across to the opposite side of the Commons chamber and sat down with his new colleagues.  I'm not sure whether that actually happened, and even if it did it's effectively lost to posterity, because there were no TV cameras allowed in those days.  So it was quite a privilege to actually be in the hall today for something equally theatrical - Alex Salmond announcing at the end of his leader's speech that Ash Regan had just joined Alba, and Ms Regan then immediately appearing on the platform to rapturous applause.  If the BBC and STV weren't there to film such a moment of high drama, they have no-one but themselves to blame - although I'm sure Alba will be happy to share their own footage.

So what effect will this have?  Above all else, credibility.  Alba are now in the Scottish Parliament, which has become a six-party chamber.  That will be reflected at least to some extent in media reporting from Holyrood, with Alba's voice being heard occasionally.  Arguably this represents the same degree of credibility boost, albeit of a different type, that Alba spurned by not putting up a big name candidate in the Rutherglen by-election and seeking an electoral breakthrough.  Some may even suggest that the whole reason for the Rutherglen decision was that the leadership privately knew Ms Regan's defection was coming and that they didn't want to take any risks with its potential impact - although ultimately defections can only take you so far, and true credibility will only flow from success at the ballot box.

Alba have also just bought themselves some time.  Although they'll obviously do their best to hold Neale Hanvey's and Kenny MacAskill's seats, those are really difficult constituencies to defend - that would have been true for the SNP as much as it's true for Alba.  There was a big danger that Alba would cease to have any elected representation at all after next year's general election, but that will no longer be the case, because Ash Regan is in place until 2026.

There will be opportunities going forward for the new Alba MSP to harry the First Minister on lack of progress towards independence, and on independence strategy, at FMQs.  (She won't have automatic leader's questions due to Alba only having one seat, so she'll have to wait her turn, but the chances will come up occasionally.)  That would have been one of the big prizes if Alba had won seats in 2021, so it's good that it's happening belatedly.

Paul Hutcheon affected weariness a few hours ago and suggested the SNP wouldn't be that bothered about losing Ash Regan.  If he really believes that, he's a fool.  This is a potential 'genie out of the bottle' moment - there was a good reason why the SNP were so euphoric about shutting Alba out completely in 2021.  Now that Alba have their foot in the door of Holyrood, it becomes much easier to imagine them staying there.

The big question now is how many of the thousands of SNP members who voted for Ash Regan in the leadership election in March will follow her across to Alba.  I must admit I'm a bit conflicted about that, because it was only with the second preferences of those people that Kate Forbes came so close to stopping Yousaf.  If the SNP are ever to be reclaimed from the ruling clique, the votes of the more radical members will probably be needed.  But I suppose every member will just have to make an individual decision about whether the SNP can be saved and is worth saving, or whether the greater impact can be made by joining Alba.

Vote James Kelly #1 in the Alba NEC elections - for radical democratisation of the party

They say a politician should never hypothecate on failure, but then I'm not really a politician, and as UNIMAGINABLE as it may seem that I won't be elected the Alba Party's Membership Support Convener when the result is announced shortly, I'd better be ready for that eventuality because if I'm not elected I'll then immediately be going forward to the general NEC ballot, which I presume will once again be split into two separate votes for male and female candidates.  This time you'll only be eligible to vote if you've registered for conference - although that's one of the rules I'll be arguing to change if I'm elected to the NEC.

If you'd like to see radical democratisation of the party, with the entire NEC and other national committees being elected by the whole membership, and perhaps with all members being able to participate in conference votes remotely, feel free to give me your first preference vote and I'll do my utmost to take that case forward.

As in previous years, I also pledge to keep a laserlike focus on the goal of obtaining independence.  Any other preoccupations that could get in the way of that (and there are plenty) must fall by the wayside - it's as simple as that.

There are various ways in which independence may be won - but it's not going to be won with a big petition

I've just been having a belated look at Robin McAlpine / Common Weal's plan for winning independence, although to be clear I've only read parts of the long document and I'm relying on the summaries in The National to fill in the gaps.  This plan is something that has intrigued me for a good few months, because Robin said just after Humza Yousaf was elected SNP leader that he could see a way of winning independence in the near future but wasn't sure whether to say what it was publicly.  Although I've often disagreed with him and could easily imagine not agreeing that his plan was workable, my interest was certainly piqued!

To start with what I do agree with, Robin is undoubtedly right to point out that trying to win international recognition for an independent Scotland "over the heads" of the UK Government is a complete non-starter.  I've been saying that all along, and if you want proof of it you need look no further than what happened when Catalonia declared independence unilaterally.  Not a single state recognised Catalonia's sovereignty - not even one of the 'rogue states' who might be thought to have nothing to lose by stirring the pot.  Not even Venezuela did it.  Scotland will get all the international recognition it requires on the day the UK Government grants recognition, and there is no way of circumventing that hurdle.  So Robin is also right to say that the main task before us is to drag the UK Government to the negotiating table.

He may well also be right that peer-to-peer campaigning and a National Commission to answer detailed questions on independence have a part to play.  But where I disagree with him is on the idea that we can and should forget about "process" because the type of campaigning he advocates can get us to 60% for Yes in the absence of a major democratic event such as a de facto referendum, and that once we do get to 60%, the game will be up for the UK.  I'd be more inclined to turn all of that on its head and say that 60% probably isn't even attainable and that therefore what is required of us is to find a mechanism for allowing a mandate that falls short of that (probably well short) to be democratically recorded, and then to use that mandate as leverage to pressurise the UK Government.

I really struggle to understand the hostility to just getting on with using scheduled (or unscheduled) elections to seek an independence mandate.  They would provide the focus for the type of campaigning Robin advocates, and they are a renewable resource - if you fail in one election, you can try again in the next.  The psychological impact of winning 53% on an outright manifesto commitment to independence will not somehow be blunted by the fact that you only won, say, 36% at the previous outing - indeed if anything the reverse is true.  And I have absolutely no doubt that an electoral mandate has far greater chance of forcing the UK Government's hand than Robin's idea of a petition.  If London isn't impressed by Ipsos polls (which have fairly consistently shown a pro-independence majority), there's no chance of wowing the people that matter with what will inevitably be dismissed as an amateurish "Change.org effort".

I also think it's a tad odd that Robin prays in aid the supposed success of the Scottish Covenant Association in getting two million people to sign a petition in favour of Home Rule in the 1950s, because there could scarcely be a better example of how easy it is for Westminster to totally ignore petitions.  I'd have thought it's beyond argument in retrospect that John MacCormick went down a blind alley with that wheeze and that he'd have been far better off sticking with party politics to achieve his aim, ideally in the SNP.  Robin seems to imply (and apologies if I'm misreading this) that the value of the petition is that it led to the Kilbrandon Commission.  That's well before my time, but I'm pretty sure it's historically bogus - Kilbrandon came about (tellingly) due to election results rather than petitions, namely Plaid Cymru's win in the 1966 Carmarthen by-election and the SNP's win in the 1967 Hamilton by-election. Its main recommendations were never implemented, of course, and devolution didn't happen until three decades later.

I also object as a matter of principle to the idea that we need a "supermajority settled will" before taking any action, because no supermajority is needed in a democracy, and because the only way of measuring it in the absence of electoral events is via opinion polls, which may well not be accurate.  It's understandable that Alister Jack wants to put YouGov at the heart of the Scottish constitution, but why we'd want to follow him down that road is beyond me.  Robin says the unionists have a stronger mandate than we do, but what does he mean by that unless he's taking dubious opinion poll results as gospel?  For as long as Ipsos UK, widely regarded as the gold standard pollster, contradicts other firms by showing a Yes lead, we'd be very foolish indeed to just take it as read that there's a No majority, or even that there isn't a stable Yes majority already there.

But my biggest gripe with Robin is identical to the one I have with the SNP "delay" faction - it's not much use having a plan predicated on what you'll do when you get to 60% if you're not going to get to 60%, which you aren't.  What you're actually doing is arguing for remaining in the UK indefinitely.  Perhaps the only difference between Robin and the SNP "delay" faction is that we know Robin is sincere and therefore genuinely hasn't recognised this fatal flaw in his prospectus.

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If you're a member of the Alba Party, you now have only a few hours left to vote for me as Membership Support Convener.  Go on, you know you want to!  The link to vote should be in your inbox from a couple of weeks ago, and you can find my pitch for the election HERE.

Thoughts on election strategy for the Alba Party

For very technical reasons to do with Alba's internal election rules, I was given an unexpected opportunity today to submit a few lines about my thoughts on the party's general election strategy.  Having done that, I thought I might as well share what I've written with Scot Goes Pop readers, because it will hopefully be of interest to anyone voting in the Membership Support Convener election, and the general NEC ballot that will follow at conference.

"My view on general election strategy is simple: whatever resources Alba commit to the election should be totally concentrated in the two constituencies we are defending, and perhaps also in support of Angus MacNeil in the Western Isles, to the extent he feels that would be helpful.  Success in those three constituencies, whether in the form of outright wins or substantial vote shares, constitutes by far the best opportunity to build Alba's profile and credibility, and to propel us towards a Holyrood breakthrough in 2026.  Putting up Westminster candidates in other constituencies would be a lose/lose, because it would deflect resources (especially human resources) away from the priority seats, and would risk creating a mythology among independence supporters that Alba were responsible for needless Labour and Tory victories due to a widespread split in the pro-indy vote."

I think we all know from the mood music that the above advice is unlikely to be heeded in full, but nevertheless it's my honest view and I believe the reasoning is fairly inescapable.  Alex Salmond has said that Alba's main strategic focus must be on Holyrood 2026 - that's entirely right, and with that in mind I really do struggle to see the logic of spreading our resources too thin with risky interventions in too great a number of seats in Westminster 2024, which of course is a first-past-the-post election.  However, the SNP have made any number of far bigger strategic missteps in recent years, so if Alba make a collective decision I'm dubious about, I'm sure I'll come to terms with it.

It would perhaps be easy to caricature my views as cautious and always veering towards the least belligerent strategy, but the reality is that if I had been on the NEC a few weeks ago I would have been strongly arguing for Alba to stand in the Rutherglen by-election, as long as there had been a big name candidate. And I'm not being Captain Hindsight in saying that, because I repeatedly said so at the time on this blog.  It was a missed opportunity to build Alba's profile and transform Alba's credibility, and again, I don't really understand the thinking behind the decision.

One thing I would add is that if I'm elected to the NEC, I would strive in the same way as I did in 2021-22 to be a voice of realism about where Alba truly stands in respect of public opinion, and the challenge it faces in reaching the level of support required to win a decent number of list seats in 2026.  As long-term readers will remember, I was a bit disturbed last year about an analysis of the local election results that I felt was somewhat divorced from reality.  There was a seductive argument being put around that any voter who had ranked an Alba candidate higher than any party other than the SNP could be counted as a likely Alba list voter, which to be blunt is nonsensical.  In many cases, these were people who had voted SNP 1, SNP 2, Alba 3, or even SNP 1, SNP 2, SNP 3, Alba 4.  The obvious likelihood is that they would have been "both votes SNP" in a Holyrood election, and yet they were being prayed in aid as an indication that Alba's "real" vote was much, much higher than 2%, that very substantial progress had been made since the Holyrood election the previous year, and that the party was already firmly on course for multiple list seats - all of which unfortunately was without foundation.  I believe that list seats

are absolutely attainable, but we're far more likely to get there if we're honest with ourselves about the distance we still need to travel.

Of course I entirely understand that in an attempt to generate momentum, it can sometimes make perfect sense to publicise poll results suggesting 20%+ of voters would consider voting Alba, and to point out the number of list seats that could theoretically translate into.  But the problem kicks in if we start to internalise that messaging and take it too literally ourselves, which I sometimes feel is exactly what is happening.  As I always point out, Archie Stirling commissioned a YouGov poll in 2007 which showed 20%+ of voters would consider voting for his new Scottish Voice party - but on election day a few weeks later, only 0.1% actually did so.  Archie Stirling-type polls count for little in the real world.  I don't want us to get into a groupthink belief that 20 list seats can be easily won through enthusiastic campaigning, and then wake up on the day after the election wondering how on earth we've ended up with zero again.

Six or eight seats, which might be won on around 6% of the national list vote, will be a Herculean effort.  That would be a tripling (in fact almost a quadrupling) of the Alba vote from 2021.  We need to have a hardheaded, rooted-in-reality think about where those extra votes might come from and how they can be won over.

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If you're a member of the Alba Party, and haven't yet voted in the party's internal elections, I'd be grateful if you'd consider giving me your first preference for Membership Support Convener.  The email link to vote should be in your inbox from just over a week ago.

Setback for "Scottish Labour" as first post-Rutherglen poll shows independence support at almost 50%

As I pointed out both before and after the Rutherglen by-election, the problem with any Labour victory was not what it would show us about public opinion, but the effect it would have on public opinion.  What happened was the nightmare scenario because the swing was far greater than expected and gave both the Scottish and London media the excuse they were dreaming of to paint the result as being of biblical significance.  There was a real danger that the early polling after Rutherglen would show a snowball effect with Labour pulling away into a big lead.  That hasn't happened, at least not in the first poll, although the big caveat is that fieldwork opened on the day after the by-election, so although most respondents would have heard about the result, the hysteria of the reporting might not have had its full effect by that point.

Scottish voting intentions for the next UK general election (Savanta, 6th-11th October 2023):

SNP 35% (-3)

Labour 35% (+1)

Conservatives 19% (+2)

Liberal Democrats 6% (-1)

Seats projection (with changes from 2019 election): Labour 27 (+26), SNP 20 (-28), Conservatives 7 (+1), Liberal Democrats 5 (+1)

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:

SNP 37% (-3)

Labour 33% (-)

Conservatives 18% (+2)

Liberal Democrats 6% (-2)

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:

Labour 29% (+1)

SNP 28% (-)

Conservatives 20% (+2)

Greens 13% (-)

Liberal Democrats 8% (-3)

Seats projection: SNP 42 (-22), Labour 39 (+17), Conservatives 24 (-7), Greens 16 (+8), Liberal Democrats 8 (+4)

My view remains that the SNP are in all sorts of trouble as far as the Westminster election is concerned, and that a poll like this may even exacerbate the problem by encouraging a "you know, we're not doing too badly in the circumstances, are we?" mindset, when in fact they really need to be taking drastic action to turn things around.  However, as far as Holyrood is concerned, it probably is fair to suggest that Sarwar's fan club may have got over-excited about the significance of Rutherglen.

And they certainly got over-excited about their belief that Scots were turning their backs on independence in favour of "real change" (a phrase that curiously seems to mean continued right-wing rule from London, ie. no change at all).

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 49% (-)

No 51% (-)

We're seeing a continued decoupling between the SNP and the Yes vote, which means by definition that a huge number of current Labour supporters actively support independence (excluding likely abstainers, roughly one-third of Labour voters in this poll would vote Yes). That may not make for the most stable of long-term relationships.

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If you're a member of the Alba Party, and haven't yet voted in the party's internal elections, I'd be grateful if you'd consider giving me your first preference for Membership Support Convener.  The email link to vote should be in your inbox from last Friday.