Polls show SNP is ahead with voters
Just days after IPSOS Mori’s poll for STV pointed to near melt down for Scottish Labour in next year’s General Election, the news just gets worse for Labour north of the border.
According to new polling released again by Ipsos Mori for STV, 57 per cent of those certain to vote in the 2016 elections to Holyrood indicated they would vote SNP. This is a 12 per cent increase on the party’s share of the vote in 2011.
The SNP’s numbers put them a huge 34 percentage points ahead of Scottish Labour,who languish on 23 per cent. This is well down on the near 32 per cent of the vote that Scottish Labour secured in the constituency vote in the 2011 elections, which saw the SNP sweep to an outright majority.
The Conservatives stand on 8 percent (down 6 points), whilst the Lib Dems are on 6 per cent, 2 points down on their results in 2011.
When asked how they would vote in the regional list section of the ballot paper, 50 per cent of those certain to vote said SNP (up 6 points from 2011) and 23 per cent said Labour (down just over 3 points). 8 per cent said Conservative (down just over 4 points from 2011) whilst the Lib Dems are on 6 per cent (just up on the 5.2 per cent of the vote they secured in the 2011 list vote).
The same poll, being released over a number of days, also reported that despite declarations to the contrary by the main UK parties, 58 per cent of Scots would support holding another independence referendum within the next 5 years, with 66 per cent supporting another vote in the next 10 years.
55 per cent indicated that they would support holding another referendum on Scottish independence in the event of the UK as a whole voting to leave the European Union.
Over the weekend, a YouGov poll for the Times revealed that excluding the ‘don’t knows’ and those who would not vote, 52 per cent would vote for Scotland to go it alone if there was a referendum tomorrow, compared to 48 per cent who would vote to stay.
Commenting on the latest Holyrood voting intention figures, Mark Diffley, Director at Ipsos MORI Scotland noted that they emphasised once again the mountain that the next Scottish Labour leader has to climb. He explained:
“These findings chime with voting intentions for the Westminster parliament and confirm the strong position that the SNP is currently in. The figures represent both a high point for the SNP and a low point for Scottish Labour in terms of polls we have undertaken. It also underlines the tough challenge faced by Labour’s new Scottish leader in the months ahead in winning back some of the lost ground.”
Ed Jacobs is a contributing editor to Left Foot Forward
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11 Responses to “Labour’s Scottish woes continue”
Jerry H
I was looking on the SNP website to get a better understanding of their position and who they would be most likely to align with (if anyone) in the next government and could not make much sense of it. Their website has not really been updated since the referendum and reading comments by their supporters they seem to despise Labour (for their role in the No campaign) as much as the Tories.
One line I found in use by SNP supporters which really amused me was “Britannia Waves the Rules”, other than that sentiment I am not sure what the implications of them taking seats are for the rest of the UK?
swat
Could be a wipeout; the Scots are revolting, en masse.
The_Average_Joe_UK
The Scots have realised Labour are crap, the Welsh are too. Ed James why do you bother?
The_Average_Joe_UK
Just think what the SNP could achieve if they update their web site eh???
Christian Schmidt
Out of interest, when reporting the regional list figures, why do you only mnetion the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th biggest party?