Latest Holyrood Polling: Disaster for Labour, Tories and Alba

The latest polling from IPSOS for STV on Scottish parliamentary elections is out (Poll Analysis: Ipsos 12th – 18th of June 2025). Let’s look at what it says, and what it means for next year’s elections.

and on the constituency vote:

The polling projects the following Holyrood seats:
SNP – 59
Labour – 23
Reform UK – 17
Green – 16
Conservative – 7
Lib Dem – 7

Independence:
Yes – 52%
No – 48%

Dr. Emily Gray from IPSOS summarised the results, saying:

“Ipsos’ newly relaunched Scottish Political Monitor, in partnership with STV News, puts the SNP out in front in Scotland on 31% of the vote if an immediate General Election was held. The poll underlines how dramatically some parties’ fortunes have changed in Scotland since the General Election. Labour have fallen out of favour with many Scottish voters while in government at Westminster, with 22% now saying they would vote for the party, 13 points lower than the party achieved last July. In contrast, Reform UK are very much on the up, with a 16% vote share putting them 9 points higher than the 7% they achieved at the General Election.”

“Half of those who supported Labour at the General Election intend to switch to other parties or are undecided as to which party to vote for. Parties benefiting from voters switching from Labour are Reform UK (17% of Labour 2024 voters now say they would back Reform UK), the SNP (9% of Labour 2024 voters now intend to vote SNP), the Scottish Green Party (7%) and the Liberal Democrats (6%).”

The SNP are down, but not so dramatically down as Labour, giving them the lead. It is dire for the Tories. As Ballot Box Scotland writes: “This is the worst Conservative share I’ve seen. Falling bang on 10% means they are in single-digits in urban Scotland. This is absolutely catastrophic, and speaks to the fact the Conservatives are being utterly devoured by Reform and neither their UK nor Scottish leader has a clue what to do about it.”

It is a great result for Reform UK, coming from nowhere; it’s one of the strongest ever showings for the Scottish Greens; and is disastrous for the Alba party projected to win no seats.

 

 

Holyrood 2026

So what would that mean for the makeup of the parliament? It would mean an Independence Bloc of the SNP and Greens would have a majority of 75 seats 58.14% (other parties 54 combined or 41.86%), or a minority administration of the SNP on 59 seats 45.74% (with other parties 70 or 54.25%).

There are so many variables at play here that this could go anywhere, but there’s some trends that you can see. First, you can see Scottish Labour being dragged under by the calamitous Starmer regime. Today the headlines were once again dire: Anas Sarwar ‘totally humiliated’ by Labour’s dramatic benefits U-turn. It’s too late for Scottish Labour to change their leader, even if they wanted to, and they have too little gumption or chutzpah to create a space between them and the London leadership. Prediction: they’ll go down with the ship.

Second, the SNP’s survival given both the external barrage the party is under daily and the internal dissent and criticism Swinney faces is incredible. This may be about trust. IPSOS’s Emily Gray writes: “The SNP is the party most trusted by the public to grow Scotland’s economy (25%), manage the NHS in Scotland, manage education and schools, and tackle the cost of living crisis (all 24%). This contrasts with the situation in Ipsos’ previous poll in June 2024, when trust was closer-run between the SNP and Scottish Labour, with the parties neck and neck on the NHS and education, Labour enjoying a small lead over the SNP on tackling the cost of living crisis and the SNP leading Labour on growing Scotland’s economy. The SNP is also the most trusted party to stand up for Scotland’s interests, by some distance – 37% trust the party to do this, compared with 12% who trust Scottish Labour to do the same.” Prediction: remains to be seen if ‘steadying the ship’ is enough in the short term to retain support. The SNP’s enduring lead stems from a low bar in Scottish politics.

Third, it is an incredible performance from Reform UK, who, despite no figurehead, no identifiable candidates and no policies can still steal votes off the mainstream parties. This says as much about the other parties as it does about Reform. Prediction: I remain convinced that Reform will not do as well in Scotland as many are predicting, partly because of their lack of anything, and partly because when they are exposed to any reality, they are found-out.

Fourth, the polling is utterly disastrous for the Alba party. They are on 1% and will win no seats. If they are ambitious and stand lots of candidates they’ll lose lots of money. Their recent decision to reject Craig Murray as a potential candidate for Alba at Holyrood 2026 was probably the right one, but has enraged some of their supporters and probably said more about their current leaders insecurity than anything else. Prediction: a storm isn’t coming.

Fifth, the polling is impressive for the Scottish Greens who are possibly having a Reverse Starmer, ie they are benefiting from the prospective leader of Zack Polanski in England. The Greens have managed to position themselves as the choice between Reform or Green as the ‘non-establishment’ vote. Prediction: if they get the post-Patrick Harvie leadership right they will beat Reform and could become pivotal in 2026.

Ipsos interviewed a representative probability sample of 1,066 adults aged 16+ across Scotland, via the Ipsos UK KnowledgePanel. Data was collected online between 12th – 18th June 2025.