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End of the SNP era as Labour draws level in Scotland
New poll suggests both parties would win 24 seats north of the border in major boost to Keir Starmer’s hopes of becoming PM
The era of SNP dominance in Scotland appears to be over after a poll showed Labour on course to win the same number of seats in next year’s general election following a dramatic shift in support.
The Survation survey, for the True North public relations agency, predicted that both the SNP and Labour would win 24 seats north of the border in a major boost to Sir Keir Starmer’s hopes of becoming prime minister.
This would mean the SNP losing half the 48 seats it won in the 2019 general election, with Labour staging a major comeback in Scotland after winning only one seat last time.
Labour achieved 35 per cent support in the poll, its highest level since 2014 and only two points behind the SNP’s 37 per cent rating, with the Tories trailing on 17 per cent.
Sir John Curtice, the UK’s most eminent psephologist, said: “If Labour picks up two dozen seats in Scotland, you can probably knock four points off the lead over the Conservatives that the Labour Party would need UK-wide in order to achieve an overall majority.”
In another major blow to the SNP, Humza Yousaf, the First Minister, had a -22 net approval rating from voters – the difference between the number of people who like and dislike him.
Sir John compared his lack of popularity with that of Liz Truss when she became prime minister. He was only slightly more popular than Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader (-26) and far behind Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader (-3).
Voters also expressed increasing dissatisfaction with the SNP’s power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens at Holyrood following a succession of controversial environmental policies.
A majority of people in Scotland now no longer support the arrangement, with 40 per cent actively opposing it, including almost a quarter of voters who supported the SNP at the 2019 general election.
That is an increase from when Survation last asked this question in May, when only 37 percent of overall voters – and 21 per cent of 2019 SNP voters – opposed the deal.
However, backing for independence remained at 48 per cent, in further evidence of a ‘decoupling’ of voters’ stance on the issue with support for the SNP.
Sir John said: “The SNP has had little success so far in shaking Labour off its tail. As a result, the party faces a continuing risk of losing a significant number of Westminster seats in next year’s UK general election.
“The party’s efforts are seemingly not being helped by Humza Yousaf’s apparent difficulty in making a favourable impression on the Scottish public.”
Dr Eilidh Whiteford, a Truth North adviser and former SNP MP, said the poll indicated that “Scotland is on a knife edge and a significant change could be under way in the once-settled Scottish political landscape”.
She added: “The public’s ambivalence towards the SNP-Scottish Green Party cooperation agreement is also likely to only strengthen calls from some quarters for the arrangement to be reviewed.”
Andrew Liddle, another adviser for the firm and a former Scottish Labour adviser, said: “This poll provides further evidence that the Scottish Labour Party is finally recovering in Scotland after more than a decade in the wilderness.”
The poll also found that the pro-independence parties, the SNP and Greens, would lose their combined majority at a Holyrood election. It predicted that the SNP would remain the largest party in the Scottish Parliament, with 49 seats, with Labour close behind on 42 seats.
The Tories would fall back from second place to third, dropping from 31 seats to only 17, with the Liberal Democrats on 11 and the Greens 10. The survey of 1,022 people was conducted between Aug 15 and Aug 18.
Support for the nationalists has been in a tailspin since Nicola Sturgeon’s sudden resignation in February and the high-profile police investigation into the party’s finances.