Labour is on course for its worst result in an election in 116 years in May as Scottish voters desert it, a new poll suggests.
Against a backdrop of major dislike for Keir Starmer, Anas Sarwar’s party is on course to take just 15 per cent of the vote in the Scottish Parliament election.
A survey by YouGov today suggests it will remain the third largest party at Holyrood, but with Reform forming the largest opposition group to the Scottish National Party, also leapfrogging the Tories.
Less than a third (32 per cent) of Scots who voted for Labour at the 2024 general election plan to do so in May, with more than a quarter abandoning it for both Nigel Farage’s party (14 per cent) and the nationalists (13 per cent).
It is the second recent poll to show that Reform – led north of the border by former Tory peer Malcolm Offord – is on course to be the second largest party at Holyrood, despite currently having zero seats.
Labour’s 15 per cent in both the constituency and regional list votes is below their 22 per cent and 18 per cent share respectively in 2021.
A YouGov spokesman said: ‘If repeated in May, this would be Labour’s worst result in either a Westminster or Holyrood election in 116 years.’
Mr Offord said the poll findings ‘reflect the reality we are hearing on the doorsteps’.
He added: ‘Anas Sarwar is in the last-chance saloon. His desperate attempts to escape Scottish Labour’s toxic brand and make this a presidential election between him and (John) Swinney have backfired spectacularly.
‘The SNP are down 14 points on the 2021 election, recording their lowest opinion poll share since John Swinney’s disastrous first leadership of the party in 2003.
‘It is now a clear two-horse race between a clapped-out SNP Government and new direction for Scotland with Reform.’
The SNP is on course to retain power despite 57 per cent of those polled by YouGov saying they were dissatisfied with its performance running the Scottish Government .
At the same time, 75 per cent said the same was true of the way Labour was running the UK.
Today Science and Technology Secretary Liz Kendall insisted Labour was ‘determined to win’ and said the vote should be a ‘referendum on the SNP’s record’.
She dismissed suggestions from SNP First Minister John Swinney that Sir Keir will no longer be Prime Minister if Labour poll badly in Scotland and Wales in May.
Rather than seeing the Holyrood poll as a way to a second Scottish independence referendum – as Mr Swinney hopes – Ms Kendall said the vote should instead focus on the Scottish Government’s own record.
‘I’m for winning, I want to win for Scotland, I want to win for the UK,’ she said.
A Savanta poll earliest this month suggested Labour and Reform were on course to win 18 seats each, miles behind the Scottish National Party, which is on course to marginally increase its share to 61 seats and remain in government with Green support.
It came after Wales’ Labour First Minister today begged voters not to treat May’s Senedd election as a protest against Sir Keir Starmer’s government.
The party faces losing power for the first time since devolution in Cardiff, prompting Baroness Eluned Morgan to say Sir Keir is ‘not on the ballot paper’.
She refused to say he was a ‘good prime minister’ as she appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Polls have suggested that the Senedd is likely to be run by a coalition government made up of nationalists Plaid Cymru and the Greens, with Reform leading the opposition.
Baroness Morgan could see her party reduced from its current 29 seats to just eight, becoming just the third largest party.
One poll, released this afternoon, suggested just 10 per cent of voters in Wales believe Sir Keir’s Government is doing a good job, with the figure little better for the Welsh Labour government (14 per cent).
