SCOTTISH Labour would lose all but six of their Westminster seats if a new General Election were held tomorrow – and face dropping behind Reform UK at next year’s Holyrood elections, new polling has found.
The Find Out Now survey run for The National from September 15-21 further gave the SNP significant leads over the rest of the field in both Westminster and Holyrood voting intention.
It found that, in a new General Election, 30% of Scots would vote for John Swinney’s party. In second place were Reform UK, who polled at 23%.
Scottish Labour polled in third at 15%, while the Tories scored 10% and the LibDems 9%. In total 6% of Scots said they’d vote Green in a Westminster election, and 5% another party.
However, despite Reform UK’s commanding lead over both the Tories and Labour in voting intention, seat projections from Professor John Curtice based on uniform swing suggested they would still fail to return a Scottish MP.
The projected seat totals were: SNP, 42; Labour, 6; Tories, 6; LibDems, 3.
Curtice said that whether this would play out in reality would be “very difficult to call”, as his calculations put Reform UK only 2-3% behind in some seats, which could go their way in an actual election.
For Holyrood, the polling put the SNP on 33% of the constituency vote, with Reform in second place on 19%. Scottish Labour polled at 14%, the LibDems 11%, the Tories and Greens both at 10%, and Alba and “Other” both on 2%.
On the list vote, the SNP polled at 25% and Reform UK on 16%. Labour polled at 15%, while the Tories were on 11%, and the LibDems 9%.
Elsewhere on the list, the Greens polled at 15%, and Alba at 5%. However, Curtice said that the phrasing of the question – "Thinking about your second (regional or party) vote for the Scottish Parliament, which party list would you vote for?" – may have skewed the figures.
He said it was "doubtful" that as many SNP supporters would switch their votes to the Greens on the list as the poll suggested, and may instead have been selecting their second preference.
If the polling results were to be replicated at next year’s Holyrood elections, Curtice projected that the SNP would return 57 MSPs, the Greens 18, Reform UK 17, Labour 16, the Conservatives 13, and the LibDems 8.
This would mean Holyrood had 75 Yes-supporting MSPs, a majority of 21 in the 129-seat chamber.
Elsewhere, the polling found that Scots would back independence in a second referendum by 52% to 48%.
Find Out Now polled 1282 Scottish voters between September 15-21.
