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”
Maureen Luby
Got as far as “Dear leader”. Your language negates any ‘argument’ you are trying to make.
Nick Dunne
unfortunately for him Murphy’s lying is pathological and almost involuntary, programmed to keep power. Hoist on his own petard he cannot tell the truth, which is that Labour and he are finished. A sad day for a parody of socialism that never really existed in the guise of British Labour.
RedMiner
Labour now supports sanctions, foodbanks, sham disability assessments banned in the USA, and workfare and sees all as integral to disciplining the workshy and the low paid. Any careful study of Labour statements in general and Rachel Reeves in a particular reveals a party that has entirely bought into the Tory-tabloid welfare agenda. Only this week Reeves was boasting of Labour plans to increase (ie: decrease) the benefit cap outside London, stating that benefits shouldn’t pay more than work, a lie that we’ve been fighting to refute since it was first aired by the Tories. Benefits never pay more than work when like is compared with like, and that a shadow minister is now peddling tabloid myths as fact either means she is grotesquely innorant of her brief or a shameless Red Tory. Which is it?
This week she reassured Telegraph readers that people who have the temerity to want real paid employment and refuse Labour’s glorified workfare sheme will be allowed to starve, whilst simultaneously treating us to her cosy family & career plans. If only the unemployed people she so publicly disowned and is so clearly contemptuous of with her ‘lifestyle choice’ Toryisms could plan such futures.
The Bedroom Tax is the socialist fig leaf over the Tory groin. Labour scraped around focus groups and think tanks and finally managed to find a benefit cut less popular than the plague. It’s wheeled out like some pitiful example of social justice credentials but winds up reminding us just what a collection of third rate ex-bankers and parachuted thank-tankers have reduced the party.
All there is now is ‘Vote Labour and let the bad save you from the worse’. All there is now to listen to ‘tougher than the Tories Reeves throwing her arms up in horror and crying ‘misrepresentation’ every time somebody believes what she says and objects to it.
Pathetic.
Wee Jimi
Murphy keeps repeating the lie… Biggest party forms government, They say madness is repeating the same thing hoping for a different outcome,
stelsewhere
Labour have done NOTHING for Scotland .. and when i say “nothing .. i mean NOTHING! .. Scotland voted for Labour for generations yet got NOTHING back .. The SNP have proven without doubt to represent the Scottish peoples voice over the self indulgent corrupt Westminster .. The Union isn’t equal .. the Union isn’t fair ! .. time for Scotland to waken up to the subjugation we have suffered under the Westminster rule that serves the few over the many .. hopefully the people of England will awaken as well creating a truly democratic group of countries working together for the better good of all of the peoples of these islands… the Union can survive but not under the current system of government.