A NEW in-depth poll has suggested Reform could win Westminster seats in Scotland for the first time – and shows the right-wing party making inroads across the county.
According to YouGov’s latest MRP poll, if a General Election was called today Nigel Farage’s party would return MPs in three Scottish constituencies – Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, Dumfries and Galloway and Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale.
The National analysed the findings from the survey and found that Reform would also come in second place in 16 constituencies, and third place in a staggering 37.
In Gordon and Buchan, the poll puts the Tories as holding the seat with 24%, but both the SNP and Reform have the same vote share, pointing to a potential knife-edge race.
In our interactive map below, you can compare the projected seats to the result of the 2024 General Election.
It shows an evident surge in support for Reform in Scotland, leaving the Tories below 10% in scores of seats across the country.
The SNP would become Scotland’s largest party once again, with the predictions showing them returning 38 MPs, up from nine.
The Shadow Scottish Secretary, Tory MP Andrew Bowie, would lose his West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine seat to the SNP.
YouGov put the SNP’s support at a similar level to 2017, where they won 35 seats, down from 56 seats in 2015.
Scottish Labour would lose 27 of their current seats to the SNP and Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock to Reform, taking them to only nine MPs.
Top pollster John Curtice said he wasn’t “surprised” by the result of the MRP, having recently analysed YouGov polling from May and June.
“Given that Reform is very geographically fairly evenly spread, you basically would expect them to end up with those second and third places,” he said.
“The kinds of overall numbers they're getting is kind of what you would expect given the fact that Reform in the GB wide polls and in this Reform poll were winning 30% or whatever.
“It didn't suggest that there was any great profound change in the geography of Reform support and Reform are ahead across the UK so don't be surprised that they get the largest party. It's not really.”
Curtice said that he also wasn’t surprised to see the Scottish Tories at the bottom of the list, along with the LibDems and Scottish Greens, in a number of constituencies.
“The Tories are facing an existential crisis. I mean Reform are having them for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” he added.
Patrick English, director of political analytics at YouGov, said: “Just a year since Labour’s election landslide, the party is on course to win fewer seats than it did in 2019,” he said.
“That a clear majority would now vote for someone other than the two established main parties of British politics is a striking marker of just how far the fragmentation of the voting public has gone over the past decade.”
