SCOTTISH Labour have fallen further behind the SNP in the latest Holyrood polling.
It comes after the party’s leader Anas Sarwar announced a major U-turn as he said Scottish Labour would introduce a universal Winter Fuel Payment in Scotland should they win the next Holyrood election.
Polling by Survation on behalf of the pro-independence think tank Progress Scotland, seen by The Times, shows support for Labour has fallen by four points in Holyrood constituencies and one point on the regional list since September.
Survation interviewed 3016 people aged 16 and over between November 1 and 15.
Although the SNP’s support largely remained the same, leading pollster Sir John Curtice said the results showed they would be the biggest party in Holyrood.
What do the numbers say?
The polling put the SNP on 31% in the constituency vote, the same as two months ago, while Labour had fallen four points to 27%.
The Scottish Tories, Reform UK and the LibDems all increased by one point to 14%, 10% and 9% respectively while the Scottish Greens are still on 6%.
On the regional list, SNP and Labour both dropped by one point to sit at 27% while the Tories and Reform each gained one point – putting them at 15% and 11%
The Greens meanwhile remained on 10%, the LibDems fell one point to 9% and Alba scored 3%.
Overall, Curtice’s (below) projections put the SNP on 42MSPs, with Labour on 34, the Scottish Tories 18, Reform 14, the LibDems 11 and the Greens 10.
However, this would still leave the SNP and Greens 13 seats short of a pro-independence majority in Holyrood.
Any coalition hopes between Labour and the LibDems meanwhile would be 20 seats short.
Even if the Tories were to join the other two sitting Unionist parties, they would still be two seats shy of having control of the chamber.
What else did the poll find?
The same research found that a majority of Scots would pick independence as their top choice for the country’s constitutional future.
Elsewhere, Progress Scotland found that 51% of voters believe ministers in Edinburgh rather than Westminster should have responsibility for Holyrood, while 33% thought it should be Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
It comes after Reeves hiked the rate of employers’ National Insurance contributions in a move which has been met with fury by businesses across the UK as well as organisations such as the University of Edinburgh.
The university blamed looming job losses on decisions made in the Labour Budget.
