There is widespread support for another referendum; now Labour must persuade the electorate that May is not a proxy vote for independence
Scottish Labour faces a double bombshell this morning, with new polling not only suggesting near wipe-out for the party in May, but showing that a majority of people now support independence.
The data, collected by Survation for the Labour-supporting Daily Record newspaper, has found that with undecideds and won’t says taken out, 51 per cent of people in Scotland would vote for independence compared to 49 per cent who would reject such a proposition. This is the first poll to put independence in the lead since September’s referendum.
More worryingly still for the pro-union parties, 60 per cent of respondents expressed support for another referendum being held within the next 10 years, despite declarations in September that the last vote had settled the issue ‘for a generation’.
Meanwhile, in the week that Ed Miliband ruled out any coalition agreement with the SNP following the election, today’s poll puts the SNP on 47 per cent, up two percentage points from Survation’s poll last month. Labour are on 26 per cent (-1), the Conservatives are up one point to 16 per cent, and the Lib Dems are on four per cent (down one point) with no changes on the seven per cent of voters who plan to vote for another party.
According to the calculations, if replicated across the country, the SNP would secure 53 of Scotland’s 59 seats with Labour slumped to just five MPs north of the border and the Lib Dems losing all but one of its seats.
Seeking to move attention away from independence and towards the General Election, Scottish Labour’s lead Jim Murphy has once again responded to this poll by telling voters that a vote for any party but Labour will lead to a Conservative government. He concludes:
“There is only one party across the UK that is big enough to stop the Tories being the largest party and that’s Labour.
“Now that it’s 100 per cent certain that there won’t be a Labour and SNP coalition there’s only one way to beat the Tories.
“A vote for anyone other than Scottish Labour risks the Tories being the biggest party and David Cameron returning to Downing Street by accident.
“That would be a terrible outcome for Scotland but it’s what could happen if this poll is repeated on election day.”
Unsurprisingly, the SNP have welcomed the results. The party’s leader at Westminster Angus Robertson has concluded it ‘shows that support to give Scotland a strong voice at Westminster by returning a team of SNP MPs to stand up for Scottish interests remains very high’. He continued:
“By contrast, Labour continue to pay the price for being on the same side of so many arguments as the Tories, including their joint commitment to imposing even more spending cuts.
“We take nothing for granted and will work extremely hard to win people’s trust on May 7 so that we can deliver jobs and growth in place of Westminster cuts, power for Scotland and the non-renewal of useless and expensive Trident nuclear weapons.”
Speaking exclusively to Left Foot Forward, Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University has noted that for Labour to gain a recovery would require three things:
- Showing to voters in Scotland that Westminster is relevant to their lives;
- Persuading voters that May is not a proxy vote for or against independence; and
- Gaining traction for its vision for a fairer society to counteract Nicola Sturgeon’s campaigning efforts in this direction.
Whether or not this can all be achieved between now and polling day remains to be seen.
Ed Jacobs is a contributing editor to Left Foot Forward. Follow him on TwitterA
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127 Responses to “A double bombshell for Scottish Labour”
stelsewhere
and i certainly DON’T believe Scotland is “better” than anyone .. but i DO believe that Scotland can stand on its own two feet and there are MANY reasons that far outweigh the benefits of staying in a UK that subjugates smaller “so called” partners !… Westminster still lives in the Victorian era and still has the Empirical mindset even though the Empire is dead and all that’s left to do is BURY IT!
Guest
You’ve said so, repeatedly. You think barring the world off from Scotland is a good thing too, right, as you say the British are victorian and magically are all your kind of Empire men, and you’d bury the British. With your magical war, no doubt.
Guest
You lash out at the British as usual. I am not English, I’m British, and you can’t accept that.
You’re screaming that other people are your sort of racist, as you call for the right you belong to in England to target Jews like me, as you go with anti-disabled hate too. As you spew accusations of mental illness for not being a closed-minded nationalist.
YOU are in the same mindset as the BNP and EDL – closed minded nationalism, afraid of the outside world. That you also spew hate at Muslims is no surprise, as you say that stopping all but your chosen people from voting is and that allowing British people to vote is like IS. Right.
Joshua Macpherson
Agree
Carol Murphy
You are a very confused wee person….the SNP is a social democratic party whose beliefs are to the left of centre, unlike your rotten to the core unionist parties who are so far to the right they are indistinguishable from the Tories now.