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Saturday, March 15

Labour Polling Woes Laid Bare

JamieBy 19 Views3 Mins Read Holyrood

Sarwar Under Pressure as SNP Win Kilmarnock By-Election

The SNP has gained a seat from Labour in Kilmarnock, increasing the pressure on Anas Sarwar as Labour conference kicks off today.

The SNP candidate Caroline Barton won the Kilmarnock North by-election – gaining a seat that was held by Labour. The SNP now hold all 3 seats in the Kilmarnock North ward. 

SNP Leader John Swinney celebrated the result as “the perfect start to Scottish Labour conference“. 

Ahead of the conference kicking off in Glasgow today (Friday), the SNP outlined key polling data that makes grim reading for current Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar.

Recent polling data reveals:

  • Labour is bleeding voters to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, who are poised to overtake them. The most recent Westminster poll (Norstat: Sunday Times, February) shows Labour on 18% to Reform on 17%, with Labour trending down and Reform trending up. More than half of the voters in the poll that had switched to Nigel Farage’s party since the last General Election had switched from Labour.
  • If Scottish Labour scored in an election tomorrow what they are currently polling, it would be the lowest share of the vote they have received in any Holyrood or Westminster election since before the advent of universal suffrage. Their 18% of the constituency vote (Norstat: Sunday Times, February) is four points below the 22% share that put them in third place in 2021.
  • Hardly anyone in Scotland thinks Keir Starmer is a good prime minister. Just one in six say he is doing a good job (Norstat: Sunday Times, February). His 17% is lower even than Boris Johnson, who scored an average of 22% as prime minister with the same pollster (five polls, June 2019 to March 2021).
  • More than half – 53% – of Scots who voted Labour disapprove of the Labour government’s record in office (YouGov: February). 
  • Anas Sarwar is a less popular choice as First Minister than the leader that led them to their biggest Holyrood defeat. Only 16% of the public choose Anas Sarwar as the best First Minister of Scotland (Survation: True North, January). That’s well below Iain Gray’s score of 27% at the time of Labour’s 2011 rout (YouGov, April 2011).

I obviously very much welcome this by-election win for the SNP, but it should also come as a wake-up call for Anas Sarwar and Scottish Labour as they open their party conference today.

Sarwar and Starmer alike are in total disarray, battling for second place with Nigel Farage in a most unedifying way.

Broken promise after broken promise is catching up with them – the people of Scotland are paying attention to this repeated failure.

Whether on Grangemouth, energy bills or promises to pensioners, the electorate has no reason to believe Labour will follow through on anything they say they will – meanwhile, the SNP Scottish Government remains resolutely focused on the country’s priorities in its Budget.

GRAEME

I’m Graeme’s Parliamentary Assistant based at Holyrood, but I support his constituency work as well. Having been Caseworker to an Aberdeenshire MP some years prior, joining Graeme's team in 2019 was a return to this line of work from a role in fundraising.

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