The Scotsman Bulletin Thursday June 27 2024 #GeneralElection

The Scotsman

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00:00Hello, welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Built-in for Thursday. I'm Alan Young, I'm Deputy Editor

00:14of the Scotsman. I'm joined today from the Scottish Parliament by our Political Editor,

00:18Alistair Grant. Hi Alistair. Hello, how's it going? Good, let's have a look at the front page.

00:25And there we are, we are now a week out from polling day. Try and contain your excitement

00:32and our splash today is an exclusive poll which has been done by Savantha. Alistair Grant has

00:39the story there and it shows the SNP actually closing the gap on Labour when it comes to

00:45vote share. What that means in terms of seats though, however, is still that Labour have

00:54the majority of seats in Scotland and Alistair will explain to us now how that could possibly

01:01be the case. If both parties, as our poll shows, are falling round about 34%,

01:07how can there be such a big disparity in the number of seats gained?

01:12Yeah, so this poll has both the SNP and Labour on 34% north of the border, so neck and neck,

01:19and that's a fall of four points for Labour since the last Savantha poll for the Scotsman

01:24in the middle of June, middle of this month. It's an increase of one point for the SNP,

01:29so it's showing that kind of narrowing of the gap between the SNP and Labour. And on vote share

01:34they're now, as I say, neck and neck, but like you say, on seat projections which were carried

01:39out for us by Professor John Curtis, the polling guru, Labour is on 28 seats, the SNP is on 18,

01:46the Tories are on six, the Lib Dems would be on five. And the reason that Labour are on 28 and

01:52the SNP are on 18 is because Labour's vote is much more, you know, quote-unquote efficient,

01:58as pollsters might say, it's really concentrated in the central belt, across the central belt of

02:02Scotland where there are loads of seats, there's loads of seats that Labour can pick up in Glasgow,

02:07in Lanarkshire, in areas, as I say, across the central belt, whereas the SNP's vote

02:12tends to be spread throughout Scotland, so it's not as efficient when it comes to picking up seats.

02:17That's just how First Past the Post works. Some people would say that's unfair,

02:21you know, we've had conversations about this in the past and in politics and society, but that

02:25is how it works. And the SNP, you know, that's favoured them in the past, you know, they've

02:30picked up lots and lots of seats in the past on roughly just under 50% of the votes. People

02:34might remember they had almost a clean sweep of seats in Scotland. So it has favoured them in

02:39the past, but this poll, if it was replicated in the general election next week, would see

02:47Labour pick up much more seats, many more seats than the SNP, even though their vote share is

02:52neck and neck. So it's interesting in that regard. There's a few other interesting things

02:56about the poll as well, I think. One is that Savanta have polled for Reform UK, Nigel Farage's Reform UK,

03:03for the first time, and that puts Reform on 6% of the vote. You know, Reform are not the political

03:10presence that they are in Scotland, in Scotland, sorry, than they are down south. Nigel Farage

03:15doesn't poll well in Scotland. But having said that, the fact that Reform are picking up,

03:20you know, even just 6% of the vote will worry the Scottish Conservatives. They've dropped

03:25by one point in this poll, they're on 14% of the vote. But I think it shows a one in eight,

03:31one in eight 2019 Tory voters are thinking about voting Reform or switching to Reform.

03:38And in some of those seats where the Tories are neck and neck with the SNP, seats like Douglas

03:43Ross's, for example, in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, any kind of percentage of voters

03:49switching to Reform is a problem for the Tories. It's something that they will worry about. Some

03:53of these seats that the Tories are targeting are so tight that these things really do come into

03:57play. So as you say, a week to go to the election, but still a lot to play for in some senses.

04:03Like say their constituencies across the country are really on a knife edge

04:08here. And we've also got boundary changes to take into account as well.

04:15Yeah, we have boundary changes across the UK. That's changed the political landscape

04:19in a lot of constituencies in Scotland. For example, you know, I've done constituency profiles

04:24in areas like North East Fife, where the Lib Dems are expected to win, but it's changed

04:29because of the kind of boundary changes and the notional 2019 results, you know, what the 2019

04:35result would have been under the new boundaries. North East Fife is now, you know, technically the

04:39most marginal seat in Scotland. You've got places like Mid Dunbartonshire, actually,

04:43it's another Lib Dem target where the boundary changes kind of change the makeup of the constituency

04:48a bit. There's lots of that in play across different seats in Scotland. And obviously,

04:53again, don't want to mention him too much, but Douglas Ross going for that seat in Aberdeenshire

04:57North and Moray East, that's a new seat, didn't exist in 2019. Using notional results, it would

05:03have been won by the Tories under that analysis. But now, you know, polling shows it really is on

05:08a knife edge. I think Douglas Ross will be quite worried, he's gambled his political future on

05:13picking up that seat and being able to win it. He said he will step down as party leader, he'll

05:18step down as an MSP if he's re-elected to Westminster. If he hasn't re-elected, I think

05:23it's going to be a massive issue for him in terms of where he goes next.

05:28Indeed, and a quick word on John Swinney. I know you say, or we have John Curtis, rather,

05:34saying in today's story that this is mildly encouraging for the SNP, but only mildly,

05:46you can't go any further than that. The SNP have obviously said if we win a majority of seats,

05:53in Scotland, at the Westminster election, that is then a mandate to talk to the future

06:01Westminster government about independence or staging a second independence referendum.

06:06If the results, therefore, play out as predicted in today's poll, where does that leave the whole

06:12independence case? Yeah, so like you say, that's the SNP's position that a majority of seats would

06:18give them a mandate to push for a second independence referendum. Now, I think it's

06:21fair to say the SNP do not expect to throw in a majority of seats. This is just something they've

06:25got in the manifesto to address the issue of independence, to please party activists.

06:32It's a position they've had under Humza Yousaf. They've had different forms of it,

06:36but it's roughly where they've been for a while now. They don't expect to win.

06:40I think actually, in a funny way, if they won the 18 seats that our poll suggests they would

06:46next week, that wouldn't be a terrible result for them just because of expectation management.

06:51It wouldn't be a great result either. So I think John Curtis is right. It's mildly encouraging as

06:55a way to put it. But yeah, it would be a blow to the independence movement in terms of where do

07:01they go next? If the SNP go backwards, if they get under 20 seats, it's not going to be particularly

07:07promising for them when it comes to pushing forward that case for independence. I think

07:11behind the scenes in the SNP, there is an acceptance that this is now a fairly long-term project,

07:17that it's about building up support for independence in the polls, potentially to that

07:2260% mark. It's about trying to persuade people over to the case. It's not so much about this

07:28focus that we've had in the past on electoral gimmicks, on trying to reach certain thresholds.

07:34Although having said that, the focus might then turn to the Scottish Parliament election in 2026,

07:40particularly, and it's worth just saying this quickly, that if Labour wins the general election

07:45next week, which of course they're widely expected to do so, in some ways that's a good

07:51thing for Anas Sarwar in Scotland. It creates some momentum for Scottish Labour. On the other hand,

07:55the Holyrood elections are not until, as I say, 2026, a couple of years down the line.

08:00So if disillusionment sets in with a Labour government, if people think that they've not

08:04achieved what people wanted them to achieve, particularly if they've got a massive majority

08:09to implement their manifesto pledges, that might benefit the SNP. So yeah,

08:15focus might well turn to Holyrood in 2026.

08:19Good. Thanks, Alastair. Interesting times ahead, certainly. Please keep an eye on scottsman.com

08:25throughout the day, where we'll have all the very latest news and analysis. If you can do

08:30subscribe, then you'll be able to read and watch absolutely everything that we do. And if you're

08:34writing about today, as ever, please do pick up a copy of the paper from me and from Alastair.

08:40Bye for now.

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