The implosion of the SNP could give Labor a major boost to win back seats in Scotland.
After a chaotic year, the nationalist party fell in the polls and was forced to replace its leader just weeks ago.
A bombshell YouGov poll earlier this week found that just 29 per cent of Scots intend to vote for the SNP, putting it 10 percentage points behind the resurgent Scottish Labour.
Support for the SNP is lower than ever since the 2014 independence vote – and its leader, John Swinney, has negative approval ratings just weeks after replacing Humza Yousaf.
According to the YouGov poll, Labor takes 39 percent of the vote, up five points from last month, while the SNP lost four points to 29 percent.
The SNP’s implosion could give Labor a major boost to win back seats in Scotland (Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer pictured with Scottish Labor leader Anas Sarwar)
Support for the SNP is lower than ever since the 2014 independence vote – and its leader, John Swinney (pictured), has negative approval ratings just weeks after replacing Humza Yousaf.
Analysis suggests this could see Labour, which currently has two Scottish MPs, win 35 seats north of the border.
But the number of SNP MPs could fall to 11.
This would represent a massive drop in representation at Westminster for the party, which, at the height of its success in 2015, won all but three constituencies north of the border.
Then the SNP won 56 of the 59 seats up for grabs, leaving Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives with just one MP each.
Since then, their electoral dominance has continued in Scotland – although subsequent election results saw the party fail to achieve such stratospheric success.
In the December 2019 election, the SNP won 48 of Scotland’s 59 seats, but defections and the loss of the Rutherglen and Hamilton West seat in a by-election mean it currently has 43 MPs.
Labor won Rutherglen by a margin of just over 20 per cent over the SNP, boosting the party’s hopes of being able to once again send a significant number of Scottish MPs to Westminster.
The boundary changes mean that when Scots go to the polls they will elect 57 MPs, up from 59.
Mr Yousaf, who resigned as Prime Minister and leader of the SNP earlier in May, cited Police Scotland’s investigation into the party’s finances as one of the reasons the SNP lost the election Rutherglen partial inspections in October last year.
Humzar Yousaf resigned as Prime Minister and leader of the SNP in early May, following the failure of the power-sharing agreement between the SNP and the Greens.
Since then, Ms Sturgeon’s record as First Minister has come under increased scrutiny, with confirmation that she deleted WhatsApp messages during the Covid pandemic sparking criticism.
With elections also taking place during school holidays – most Scottish schools finish summer school at the end of June – parties will also be concerned about the impact this could have on voter turnout.
Earlier this month, Chris Hopkins, director of political research at pollsters Savanta, warned of the “uphill task” Mr Swinney faces before the election.
Mr Hopkins said: “While our research suggests the SNP continues to have a strong base, it is likely they will fall quite far from the 43 seats they currently hold at the next general election, in current state of affairs.
“Even if Swinney can start to turn things around, the specter of Sturgeon and everything her time in power is now associated with will continue to loom over the party and hamper any recovery.”
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