- author, Sir John Curtis
- role, University of Strathclyde
For the SNP, this election could not have come at a worse time.
Humza Yousaf resigned as chancellor just two weeks before Chancellor Rishi Sunak was due to fire the starting gun.
The prime minister’s fate was sealed when the Green party indicated it would vote against him in a vote of no confidence after he decided to expel two of his party’s ministers from the government.
Following this drama, the SNP found itself lagging behind Labour in Westminster opinion polls on voting intentions for the first time since the 2014 independence referendum, leaving John Swinney, who was unexpectedly elevated to the position of SNP leader for a second time, with just six weeks to turn the situation around.
Polls so far have suggested that while Mr Swinney may have stabilised the Nationalist forces, he has made little progress in repairing the damage caused by Mr Yousaf’s abandonment of the Bute House agreement with the Greens.
Five Scottish-only polls conducted in the past three weeks have put Labour on 36% and the SNP on 32%, on average – little changed from the comparable figures in polls conducted between the end of the Bute House agreement and the call for the election, which showed Labour on 36% and the SNP on 31%.
The Conservative Party, whose popularity appears to have fallen over the past three weeks, is lagging far behind on 14% – lower than the party has recorded in any previous Westminster election.
The Liberal Democrats’ prospects in the north depend on results in just a handful of constituencies, but their average support remains at 8%, unchanged from the start of the campaign.
Further evidence on the likely outcome of the Scottish election comes from five very large-scale polls which attempted to predict seat-by-seat results across the UK.
One of these reports, from Survation, brought more good news for the SNP: it suggested that with 37% of the vote the SNP still had a seven-point lead over Labour, and could win 34 seats, double Labour’s 17.
The Liberal Democrats were predicted to win four seats and the Conservatives two.
However, four other large-scale polls showed similar results to the Scotland-only poll.
On average, Labour’s support is 36% – four points higher than the SNP’s 32%. They suggest that this would mean that Labour would win 34 seats and the SNP only 15, although the exact figures vary considerably from poll to poll.
The Conservatives, again with just 14% support, are seen as likely to win four seats each, along with the Liberal Democrats (7%).
Despite support for independence still remaining close to 50% the SNP is trailing in most opinion polls.
The problem is that of those who said they would vote in favour of independence, only 64% currently intend to vote SNP, while one in five (20%) support Labour.
The SNP’s hopes of closing the gap with Labour over the next 10 days will depend mainly on persuading Labour-leaning supporters back into the nationalist camp, while Labour will do all it can to keep them there.
John Curtice is Professor of Politics at the University of Strathclyde, a Senior Research Fellow at the Scottish Social Research Centre and the UK in a Changing Europe, and co-host of the Trendy podcast.
