Scottish Labour’s Holyrood Disaster
Continuing our tracking of polls in the lead up to the Holyrood elections (see The King in the North and tracking Holyrood and Senedd Polls), today YouGov published new polling.
The headlines are:
With the SNP and Greens commanding 70 MSPs, there would be another comfortable pro-independence majority. A seat projection by John Curtice suggested these numbers would give the SNP 60 seats – Reform 23 and Labour 15. The Tories would return 13 MSPs, the Greens 10 and the Lib Dems just eight.
Scottish Labour is in a distant third place for the Holyrood election after the poll found Anas Sarwar’s party languishing on just 15%. The poll showed Labour five points behind Reform UK and 19 points behind John Swinney’s SNP.
If repeated in May, this would be Labour’s worst result in either a Westminster or Holyrood election in 116 years.
A mere third of Scots who backed Labour at the 2024 general election (32%) currently intend to cast their constituency vote in May for the party, with 14% now supporting Reform UK, 13% now intending to vote SNP and 4-6% backing each of the Conservatives, Lib Dems and Greens.
Basically, the 2024 ‘return to Labour’ vote to #GROTT was ephemeral.
The Conservatives, who are currently the second largest party at Holyrood, have seen their support roughly halve since 2021. On these figures, they would fall to just 10% of the constituency vote (down 12 points) and 11% of the list vote (down 12 points). To date, the party’s lowest ever Scotland-wide vote share in any election has been 12%.
The Tories are hemorrhaging votes to Reform, which is now full of Tories.
Reform UK is now the second-placed party in Scottish voting intention.
The SNP are still at the front of the pack, leading Reform by 14 points on the constituency vote and 9 points on the list vote. But at a tally of 60 seats, they are five short of an outright majority.
Why is this such a disaster for Labour?
Anas Sarwar is being dragged down by the weight around his neck called Keir Starmer. You Gov reports that “…just 17% of Scots having a positive view of Keir Starmer, while three quarters (74%) see the prime minister in a negative light. This includes 2024 Labour voters being twice as likely to see the party’s leader unfavourably (64%) as favourably (32%).”
But also: “Just 18% of Scots hold a favourable opinion of Anas Sarwar, while 52% see the Scottish Labour leader in a negative light, including nearly half (45%) of 2024 Labour voters, more than the 31% who see him favourably.”
Again and again the data supports the argument that the cohort of people who decided to back Labour in 2024 to ‘get rid of the Tories’ have abandoned Labour. The much heralded ‘return of Labour Scotland’ that was celebrated as a ‘return to default settings’ by the Unionist commentariat, has been an unmitigated disaster.
Other reasons for the situation include the fact that Anas Sarwar and Jackie Baillie, lack charisma and likeability and are poor communicators. Sarwar’s team, attempting to copy the campaign tactics and style of Zohran Mamdani – without the charm, policy programme or groundforce of supporters – has been painful to watch.
The Labour leader has also been guilty of over-promising and under-delivering. In order to sound bold Labour have talked of Sarwar as the ‘next First Minister’. The Times informed its readers that they have a £1 million war chest and are going to “unleash the most sophisticated digital operation in Scottish political history.” But big spend with little substance just spreads a bad message wide and far.
It was only a month or so ago that the entire Unionist commentariat was jubilant. Rachel Reeves had Shot the Nationalist Fox (again) and stamped down those belligerent Scots by telling them they’d never be allowed to vote on independence again, and it didn’t matter how they voted or who they elected. Across the board, the consensus was that this was a shot in the arm to Scottish Labour, as the Chancellor told us she gave Scotland £820 million “because Anas Sarwar asked us to.”
Then there was the bizarre idea, propagated by some, that there was going to be a rebellion to oust Starmer and replace him with Andy Burnham, and that this would, somehow, save the day. Of course, no such thing happened, nor was ever going to. It was just the fever-dream of Times journos excited to be briefed in secret.
Then there was the toe-curling hagiography of the Easdale brothers, the Ronnie and Reggie of the west coast, here lionised for reasons that remain unclear [Billionaire brothers Easdales in bid to shape Scottish politics ]. It kind of pointed to Scottish Labour’s identity crisis. Who are they and what are they for? Nobody knows, least of all them.
The campaign now has many questions at play. Can the SNP escape the problems of incumbency and the crisis of the independence cul-de-sac? Can Labour overcome the negative sentiment towards Starmer and the disappointment with the UK Labour government? Can Reform avoid association with Trump’s police state, and the policies they seek to emulate as America descends into violence? Can the Greens benefit from the Polanski-Effect and break out beyond their electoral ceiling?
Many believe the result would lead to the resignation of the Prime Minister, as we were told back in October: Scottish Labour figures believe Keir Starmer will quit if SNP wins Holyrood election – Daily Record. This might shift from a probability to a likelihood if Labour also crater in Wales.
A very good summation of what will likely happen in May.
But, I remain baffled as to how Reform might get 20+ seats?! Reform? You wouldn’t trust any of them in any way whatsoever, surely? Some hugely odious and vacuous people in Reform and their stance on so many things is so out of line with what Scotlands needs, and wants. Non?
I know this is a Holyrood election but in Westminster terms I thought no one, ever, could be a PM as bad as Bojo, and yet Farage seems in pole position at the next UK election? Farage? God help us all.
What is happening to people? Are they thick? Or greedy? Or desperate? I truly am baffled.
In terms of protest votes surely the Greens or the Lib Dems are the go to parties, but it seems not. I cannot get my head around what is happening when people are flocking to Farage. It is as plain as day that Reform are conning people (people are letting themselves be conned!) and seeking power to line their or own pockets..Trump style! Wake up and smell the corruption!!
We seem to speak different shorthand languages these days. Am I right in translating as follows:
Odious – PA supporters & similar, arts graduates interested in revisionist history, sociobiology, race realism, etc
Vacuous – Free market Tories looking for a new home
Thick – cynical about Marxism, feminism, transgenderism
Greedy – liable to vote on the economy, pro-private sector
Desperate – liable to vote on the economy, fed up with the usual run of politicians and commentators?
Yes, on the whole, apart from transgenderism. It is not ‘thick’ to question that ideology, and it doesn’t mean that anyone who does so is afraid of or hostile to trans people. It is possible to see trans people as victims of this ideology in much the same way as Jews are victims of Zionism.
Yes, apart from transgenderism. Unfortunately I am unable to say any more about that here.
Hi Mike, your article says “…Rachel Reeves had Shot the Nationalist Fox (again) and stamped down those belligerent Scots by telling them they’d never be allowed to vote on independence again,…” I must have missed that. Is this true? Thanks
Its true that that’s what they said in the Budget statement. Its not true that that’s what happened/
Thank you Mike.
”Anas Sarwar is being dragged down by the weight around his neck called Keir Starmer .”
Might I offer an alternative scenario ?
” Anas Sarwar is being dragged down by the weight of Anas Sarwar around his neck ! ”
I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but every time the Ambulance Chaser , Sarwar , appears on TV ( too often ) with his obviously rehearsed anger at .” ….enter the issue of the day ….” he disgusts me more . He is the epitome of a politician on the make , a man who will use any tragedy , including the deaths of children , to further his own career , . Politicians are generally poorly regarded by many but Sarwar appears to have made it his life’s work to bring his profession down to a level rarely seen in this country . As a result , he is reaping his reward in the polls ! Good riddance !
Is part of the problem for Labour not that apart from the key SNP aim of Independence, their centre left policies are very similar to those of the SNP.
Sarwar may for instance make much of the problems at QUEH re the possible early opening and the water system, but what would Labour have done differently ? It is equally pro free at point of treatment.
I’m still baffled by the polls showing Reform as the next big thing.
One thing that did occur to me was prompted by the goings on in the US where the insane fascist in the White house is encouraging his ICE masked and anonymous cowboys, who shoot and kill US citizens with impunity etc.
The other big issue that Trump has addressed is healthcare where he has removed upwards of one trillion dollars from healthcare availability. And his pal and follower in the UK, Farage, is of course on record as wanting to dismantle the NHS and replace it with a more ‘US style’ system. Farage counts among his pals (in big insurance companies for example) some who would be delighted to see a change of funding for the NHS. Imagine US style healthcare happening here. We might not have to imagine it much longer!
Immigration of course is his BIG lie, and he would almost certainly employ US style methods to ‘repatriate’ a lot of those living here but not born here. Imagine that sort of thuggery happening here. We might not have to imagine it much longer. Unless people wake up soon it will be happening here. Wake up!
Who really cares about Keir Starmer? He doesn’t represent Scotland. In fact, all these parties are just a distraction.
“The campaign now has many questions at play. .. ”
Can the SNP escape the problems of incumbency and the crisis of the independence cul-de-sac? No
Can Labour overcome the negative sentiment towards Starmer and the disappointment with the UK Labour government? No
Can Reform avoid association with Trump’s police state, and the policies they seek to emulate as America descends into violence? No
Can the Greens benefit from the Polanski-Effect and break out beyond their electoral ceiling? No.
Any more questions? The problem is that every party in Scotland is bought and sold for US gold. Every one of them has betrayed their principles and climbed into bed, (willingly or not) with the techno-fascists.
Reform are an obviously fake party set up to promote Trumpism
The Conservatives have betrayed their traditional small and medium enterprise business supporters and climbed into bed with Trump
The Labour Party is just the same as the Tories now. Tony Blair was Mrs Thatcher’s ‘Greatest Achievement’ (https://economicsociology.org/2018/03/19/thatcherisms-greatest-achievement/). A complete betrayal of its socialist principles.
The Liberal Democrats don’t seem stand for anything anymore except a hatred of the SNP. As we have seen before, all their promises are worthless. They have nothing concrete to offer at all except more of the same.
The SNP just give away our sovereignty through the corrupt freeports and quietly progress the new Clearances to hand over 30% of Scotland to billionaires immune to any legal or planning or other regulation whatsoever. NPF4 is an absolute disaster. There are no ‘remote rural’ areas to be betrayed, defunded and abandoned apart from motorhomes and pylons. We are not the ‘wild west’ where corporate greed can do as it pleases. The new Environment Bill just continues this betrayal. with its adoption of the WEF / UN 30:30 agenda. What is Kate Forbes doing in the UAE? And this is the party that is supposed to stand up for us! Shame on them.
The Scottish Greens are not the English Greens. Do the SGP support Zack Polanski? Silence. This is the party that that seems to think we can ‘save the planet’ by destroying it. They too have abandoned their founding principles and become the Greenwash party. It is not ‘Green’ to support the ‘rewilding’ (=clearance) and coercive industrialisation and privatisation of the highlands to power Big Tech’s datacentres in England. A ‘Green Freeport’ is a contradiction in terms.
The whole lot, including the crown itself, seems to me to be utterly corrupt, or else too bullied, too poor, too stupid to end private affluence and public squalor. I don’t believe any of them will stand up for Scotland’s people or our land and resources, or our ancient Claim of Right. We seem destined, whoever wins to be a colony of Trump’s America. That isn’t worth voting for.
Enough of our hand-wringing, cap-in-hand politics. It will never get us anywhere. For all our politicians to fear the robber barons more than the people is a serious mistake. The Techno-fascists couldn’t care ls about anything except their obscene wealth – at our expense. These are the same people who will even commit genocide if they see a profit in it.
‘Least worst’ isn’t good enough anymore. I have confidence in Scots that they will not vote in Reform, or for that matter any Unionist party after the recent horrors of ‘British’ sponsored genocide and galloping fascism.
So unless a candidate or a party will commit to the following basic principles, I’ll be (once again) spoiling my ballot.
1. Scotland’s people are sovereign. That means a commitment to the Claim of Right, whatever your politics. And it means an end to putting ‘shareholder value’ before the needs of people and planet.
2. Sovereignty must be expressed as democracy and public accountability. Scotland currently has neither. And both need o be seen to exist and to work. That means genuine openness in government.
3. Small is beautiful. Real democracy must be decentralised and personalised. Restructure local government and powers on Scandinavian lines, and restore voting for individuals who an be held to account by single member constituencies, elected by STV, rather than lists of faceless candidates who report only to centralised parties.
4. In Scotland the rule of law must mean that all are equal before the law and all have equal access to it. The poor must have lawyers to have access to justice; and there must always be a right of appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. No more crown immunity. The ECHR must be properly incorporated into Scots Law so that rights can be defended in practice. And that includes the ability to take the Scottish Government, local councils (including community councils), ombudsmen, QUANGOs and all other public bodies to judicial review if they put private profit before people.
5. Scotland’s resources belong only to Scotland’s people – that includes our oil and gas, our electricity and gas grids, the road and rail networks, our water, our land. We do not exist as mere resources for billionaires to ransack and profit from. That means not only nationalisation, but local, accountable, democratic control. No more imposed, coercive so-called ‘deemed contracts’. All charges for utilities must be subject to the agreement of the consumer.
I’m sure I can think of lots more but those seem to me to be the basic things Scotland and itss people and land need. They are never going to happen in the Union. They will never happen at all unless we get a commitment to them from politicians. Until that happens, any supposedly independent Scotland will be no better than Vichy France or Quisling’s Norway. If that is the offer, sorry, not interested.
Spoiling your ballot? Ach, man you can sit at home instead and have a highly principled wee greet.
The idea of the Greens willing 9 constituencies makes the whole poll fanciful.
The Greens will not win 9 constituencies they will win seats via the list votes. (as most parties other than SNP will probably do).
For those for whom nationalism superceeds or is the progenitor of all other concerns, the pro-nationalist majority is at 43% at best according to pollsville. Whatever.
Polling for independence is running at 50+%. Westminster have already decreed that, regardless of outcome of Holyrood election, they will not agree to any request for an independence referendum as they didn’t post 2021 Holyrood election. Voters are aware of this undemocratic reality and hence independence is not such a high priority for voters as it was in 2021. Despite all this there is still a good chance that a pro independence majority will be returned in May.
The only way to realistically assess voters support for an independence referendum is if Westminster stated, in advance of Holyrood election that they would agree if there was a request from the elected Scottish government for a referendum post Holyrood election. We all know that they won’t do that because they are scared of what the election result would be just as they are scared of the outcome of any independence referendum.
Supersedes.
Instead of comparing the upcoming Holyrood election with the 2024 Westminster election, it is more accurate to compare Holyrood 2026 with Holyrood 2021. In 2021, pro-independence supporters won 50% in both the constituency and the list voting.
The YouGov poll cited above gives pro-independence forces 43% of constituency votes and 42% of list votes.
These numbers are so far from a majority that unionists will have no trouble using them as evidence of a waning in support for a new referendum.
If these numbers prove accurate, John Swinney may well lose his job before Keir Starter. The new First Minister – Stephen Flynn – will have an unenviable inheritance.
His first big decision will be whether he aggressively pursues independence with no obvious way of achieving it or whether he seeks to sort out the mass of botched policies that have so undermined the pro-independence campaign.
As a potential government, Labour is not worth bothering about though it will still gain votes from those who dislike both Reform and the SNP; a substantial pool of voters.
If John Swinney wins 60 seats after 18 years in power, and there is a huge pro indy majority – he will not be resigning. Whatever you think of their record in office this is a ridiculous proposition, which you probably know.
Florian – in 2021 Holyrood election the elected government won a mandate for a second referendum. The holding of another referendum was front and centre in SNP (for) and Tory (against) manifestos. There was a relatively high turnout and SNP won election with Tories coming second. There was an elected majority at Holyrood in favour of holding another independence referendum.
Westminster (elected by voters 90% outside Scotland) blocked the Holyrood request to have one and the major Westminster parties followed up by failing to even identify any circumstances under which they would agree to a Holyrood request. In other words they will block any future request. Any person with a democratic bone in them would understand how fundamentally undemocratic this situation is.
This undemocratic cul de sac suited the unionist parties especially Labour as it effectively took an independence referendum and hence independence off the table as a live political issue. This will obviously help depress SNP vote as independence is their raison detre and their number one priority. This very cynical approach helped depress SNP vote at 2024 GE to Labour’s advantage. It in effect leaves the SNP competing with all other parties at Holyrood as to who voters trust to manage Scotland under devolved settlement. The SNP are weighed down by 18 years of being in government allied to leadership shenanigans, some poor governance, an increasingly interventionist Westminster parliament and a hostile media. These factors account for the depression of SNP vote from 2021 onwards but despite all this it still looks likely that the SNP will be largest party and with the Green Party (derided even more virulently by media in Scotland) will form a pro independence majority.
In addition to all of the above polling for independence is running at or slightly above 50%.
I don’t know how we break out of this deadlock but the one thing is obvious it doesn’t lie with Reform an English nationalist party, made up of failed Thatcherite Tories and racists who have minimal interest in Scottish society or politics and would abolish not only Holyrood but the NHS if given any opportunity.
‘In 2021 . . . the elected government (SNP) won a mandate for a second referendum’
No such referendum took place. You plainly view this as a democratic outrage. Not many voters appear to share your outrage. Three years later, a Westminister election gave them the chance to register their anger. The SNP vote fell from 1,291k in 2021 to 725k in 2024.
Right now, Indyref2 is not a hot political topic. The SNP has made very few plans for fighting such for such a vote, let alone for winning it.