POLLING expert John Curtice has delivered his verdict on a new poll which has predicted Scottish Labour are set for their worst election result since devolution.
New figures from Norstat – commissioned for the Sunday Times – show that just 18% of voters intend to back the party at the next Holyrood election in 2026.
The poll revealed that Anas Sarwar’s party would be tied with the Scottish Conservative with only 18 MSPs each – a drop of four seats and 13 seats respectively.
The SNP are set to secure 55 MSPs according to the poll, with the Scottish Greens winning 10 seats – leading to a pro-independence majority in Holyrood.
Reform UK continue to see rising popularity in Scotland as the poll projects the party would gain 15 seats, with the LibDems looking set to secure 13 MSPs.
Writing in The Sunday Times, Curtice said Sarwar’s hopes of becoming Scotland’s next First Minister seem to be “fading fast”.
“Labour’s vote is now only half of the 35 per cent it won in last year’s general election. Its support has drained away in all directions,” he said.
“As many as 15 per cent of those who backed the party in July now say they will vote Reform in next year’s Holyrood contest.”
The professor said “much of the blame” for Scottish Labour’s plummeting support lies in Westminster.
“Keir Starmer emerges from today’s poll as Scotland’s least-liked politician, with a rating slightly worse even than that of Donald Trump,” Curtice said.
“Even those who voted Labour in July give him the thumbs-down. Only 26 per cent say he is doing a good job as Prime Minister, and 42 per cent believe he is performing badly.”
Despite also having to meet the challenges of office, John Swinney is reckoned by 59 per cent of SNP voters to be doing a good job — only 11 per cent believe he is performing badly.
More Labour voters (31 per cent) believe Sarwar is doing a good job than believe he is doing a bad one (23 per cent) according to the poll, but Curtice said it seems the “appeal of Labour’s Scottish leader is too weak to counteract the negative effect” that comes with Starmer.
In contrast, 59 per cent of SNP voters believe John Swinney is doing a good job — and only 11 per cent believe the opposite.
Reacting to another rise in Reform UK support in Scotland, Curtice said: “Reform UK are continuing to make progress towards becoming a significant player in next year’s Scottish election.”
He added: “Reform is fracturing the unionist vote. As many as 24 per cent of those who would vote No to independence back the party, almost as many as now support Labour. In contrast, only 6 per cent of Yes supporters are in Farage’s camp.
“The result is that although support for the SNP is still well down on the last Scottish election, in 2021, the party has a double-digit lead over all of its rivals.”
Curtice went on: “This may help the SNP to win nearly three quarters of the 73 seats at Holyrood on only 35 per cent of the vote, a disproportionality that the allocation of the 56 list seats would not fully correct.
“As a result, Scotland may still find itself with a majority of pro-independence MSPs even though fewer than half of voters had backed a pro-independence party. Such an outcome would leave Labour’s hopes of putting the constitutional debate to bed in tatters.”
