The Conservatives could soon be the second largest party in the Scottish Parliament
There are now just 100 days to go until Scotland votes on the makeup of the new parliament at Holyrood, and the gloomy outlook for Scottish Labour is becoming difficult for its leaders to hide.
According to new polling published over the weekend, the Conservatives are now snapping at the heels of Scottish Labour to become the second largest party in the Scottish Parliament.
The data, compiled by Panelbase for the Sunday Times and Heart FM, puts the SNP on 50 per cent of the vote in the constituency section and 48 per cent for the regional vote.
Scottish Labour have dropped two percentage points to 21 per cent in the constituency vote and are down three points to 19 per cent on the regional list section of the ballot.
The Scottish Conservatives, led by Ruth Davidson, are on 17 per cent for both the constituency and regional list vote, while the Liberal Democrats languish on 6 per cent for the constituency vote and 7 per cent for the regional list section.
The Green Party finds itself on 3 per cent for the constituency and 5 per cent for the regional list section of the ballot paper.
According to the Scotland Votes website, such figures would see the SNP win 74 seats in the new parliament, 4 more than they won in 2011 on a truly historic night.
The Labour Party are, based on these figures, on course to lose 11 of the seats they won in 2011, down to just 26, with the Tories on 20, 5 more than they won in 2011.
The Lib Dems are set to secure 6 seats and the Greens 3.
The Panelbase figures also show that while Nicola Sturgeon remains by far the most popular politician in Scotland, with a net approval rating of +23, Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale is performing even worse than her predecessor Jim Murphy, languishing on a net approval rating of -13.
In contrast, Ruth Davidson for the Conservatives has a net approval of -9. Even Willie Rennie, leader of the Scottish Lib Dems, is ahead of Ms Dugdale with a net approval rating of -12.
Further figures compiled by Rob Ford of Manchester University suggest that Labour are on track to lose all 15 of their consituency seats held at Holyrood.
Based on the most recent polling, Ford calculates that Labour are 11 per cent down on their 2011 levels of support, while the SNP are up 8 per cent. He explained:
“A result in line with these polls would see 13 constituency seats fall to the SNP, while two further seats would be tight races between the SNP and the Conservatives with Labour coming third.
“Labour’s position may be even worse than the aggregate polling suggests, as their safest remaining seats tend to be in areas such as Glasgow and central Scotland, where swings to the SNP in the general election were largest … A constituency wipeout for Scottish Labour in 2016 would complete an extraordinary political collapse for a party which dominated Scotland at all levels just a decade ago.”
Speaking on the Andrew Marr programme yesterday, SNP leader and first minister Nicola Sturgeon could not resist a dig at Labour’s misfortunes, saying she did not think a Labour government was now ‘a credible notion in any sense’.
Ed Jacobs is a contributing editor at Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter
47 Responses to “Has Labour lost Scotland for good?”
elaine skinner
As an ex Labour voter who left after 40 years, along with many thousands of others…this is a real bad decision, we may have lost the Indy vote but many of us were deeply angered at the onslaught of Labour MPs from the south, around 100 coming up to Glasgow to con us. Now London Labour are insulting Scots again, we WANT to be ruled by Scottish parties in Scotland, NOT have London Labour leader and a few others to come up and interfere again and prove once more, Scottish Labour is just a BRANCH office! If this has sickened me to the core,it will many other ex Labour voters. The canvassers for Scottish Labour are already scaremongering the pensioners telling them that SNP are stopping the buspass and free prescriptions! https://twitter.com/gturner1969/status/691264589435146240 I’ll never return, Labour in Scotland are a shambles, does Corbyn really think we don’t deserve any better than those shower of selfserving careerists who only know two words SNP BAD. I was brainwashed with that for years till I found out the real facts, Scottish Labour wasn’t my friend, SNP was and has proved it in the 16 months since I became a member and activist. I know the difference, I was one of Brown’s activists.
D MacGille-Mhuire
Two on their way to jail, eh? You got insider info on this charade or are you simply trolling and smearing? Oh, and ca canny apropos Scots defamation laws which may not prove to be an irrelevancy despite your wishful thinking regarding the Scots body politic in general.
Looking forward to your “considered” updates after the mauling British Labour receive at Holyrood come May.
Tick tock, Britannia:)
Scottish Scientist
If “Scottish Labour” is a lie then it is not me who is telling it.
http://www.scottishlabour.org.uk/
If they are saying they want to be truly “Scottish” Labour then that a reasonable enough ambition. I would encourage that direction of travel and I am explaining the sort of measures it would take for “Scottish Labour” to become a truth and reality rather than a lie and an ambition.
But I’m not holding my breath. I don’t see the leadership that is required coming from Kezia Dugdale.
It would be a very different matter if I was to be elected leader of “Scottish Labour”. Then it really would be “Scottish” under my policies, as I’ve outlined above.
Pigs don’t have to fly. They just have to follow my leadership.
Scottish Scientist
I’ve got “a life” of an intelligent person pointing out where the Scots are being betrayed by Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP government.
It’s less of “a life” to turn a blind eye to where the government of the day is going wrong and to follow them without question.
It is less of “a life” to have a lower intelligence and a short attention span and to be unable to understand politics other than in terms of “what party do you support?”.
SonOfTheIsles
Yes and it’s lost the plot too.