The General Election in Scotland: an SNP Rout?
As we head into the last four days of the uninspiring, mostly dispiriting general election campaigns, what will the result be in Scotland, and how will it be interpreted?
Labour versus the SNP
According to Robert Shrimsley writing in the Financial Times last week, “the Scottish National party is about to be skelped, battered and gubbed.” Other UK media offer similar takes while acknowledging, sometimes, that support for independence is still veering around the 50:50 mark.
Yet the outcome of the general election in Scotland is far from clear. Labour is back. But the SNP is not about to disappear.
How well might Labour do compared to the SNP? Polls in June show scenarios ranging from the SNP and Labour winning an equal share of the vote to Labour being anything from one to ten points ahead. As we know, the first past the post system is set to favour Labour in this election, so even equal shares of the vote will give Labour more MPs – and more so if Labour’s vote share is substantially ahead of the SNP.
The SNP, as First Minister John Swinney and others can only admit, has had a difficult year or more. Where the SNP will go next if the election outcome is, say, 30 Labour MPs to 20 or fewer for the SNP is an open question in many ways. A new leader before 2026 may well be one of the key points of debate.
But what is clear is that both Labour and the SNP will be moving forward into, effectively, a two year campaign towards the Holyrood elections in 2026 (where equal percentage shares would give a more even outcome).
Independence
What is also clear is that the independence debate is not going away. Polls in June mostly have ‘no’ just ahead of ‘yes’ on 48 or 49 per cent, with one poll putting independence support at 51 per cent and another as low as 46 per cent. With clear majority support for independence amongst those under 50 years old, the argument will continue.
How the disconnect between SNP support and independence support will play out is another core question for the coming period. Another is the impact of a UK Labour government. If a Keir Starmer government manages to calm UK politics, and improve both the economy and EU-UK relations, might that dent independence support? Or might it make independence seem a less risky step than during the crises of recent years?
How bad could it be for the SNP? Not as bad as 2010
Media and political commentary will inevitably comment, come next Friday, on the relative number of MPs. But it’s perhaps a good moment to look briefly at the fortunes of the parties since 2010.
Back in 2010, Labour had 41 MPs and 42% share of the vote. The SNP had 19.9% of the vote and 6 MPs – and the LibDems 11 MPs though only 18.9% of the vote. So, it’s going to be better than 2010 for the SNP and not as good as 2010 for Labour (nor for the LibDems currently polling around 7%).
In 2017, when Theresa May called her unwise and unnecessary election – and also blocked Nicola Sturgeon’s call for an independence referendum in the face of Brexit – the SNP polled 36.7% and ended up with 35 MPs. It was a big drop from the 50% and 56 MPs of 2015 and prompted much debate around timing and process for an independence referendum. But the SNP was still first and, of course, bounced back in 2019.
Labour is back in Scotland and so the SNP is not going to come anywhere near its 45% vote share in 2019 and its 48 MPs. But it’s worth asking whether the SNP is actually set to do worse than its 2017 performance.
An Ipsos poll earlier in June gave Labour and the SNP 36% each – almost the same for the SNP as 2017, 9 points higher for Labour. But a similar to 2017 vote share would not translate into anything like 35 MPs for the SNP, given Labour’s polling. And most polls give Labour a lead of varying magnitude.
It’s also worth briefly looking at the combined vote share of the three main unionist parties in Scotland – Labour, Tories and LibDem. In 2010, between them, they had 77% of the vote share. In 2017, they had 62.5% of the vote and in 2019 only 53.1%. On current polls, they would get 58% of the vote (Survation) or 55% (Savanta) – not even as high as in 2017.
Polls are not suggesting that the SNP will actually poll a higher vote share on Thursday than Labour – it’s not an impossible scenario but looking unlikely. But nor is the SNP heading back down to the levels of polling it was at back in 2010.
If the polls are right, the SNP will probably have a somewhat lower vote share than 2017 and substantially fewer MPs than in 2017. Labour will come first in MPs and most likely in share of the vote. But that’s far from definite just four days ahead of election day.
Actual Results and Future Debate
It’s worth keeping the pattern of results since 2010 in mind, as rapid political analysis is produced on the results in Scotland in the early hours of next Friday morning and beyond. Labour is back in Scotland, that’s clear. And whatever the relative performance of Labour and the SNP, Scotland’s political dynamics have already changed as a result.
But the actual result matters too. And if both Labour and SNP do end up with a similar share of the vote but Labour many more MPs, expect that to figure a lot in competing analyses of the outcome. And in how the parties then position themselves as they head towards 2026.
Labour versus the SNP is the story now – and in the next two years – in Scotland. And it’s about to be a story in which the UK government is Labour too – a crucial addition and change to the political dynamics. It’s not going to be dull.