SCOT GOES POP / PANELBASE POLL: SNP on course to win well over 90% of Scottish seats at the next UK general election – plus the latest independence voting intention numbers

I know some people will be extremely dismissive of the idea that an enormous SNP lead is good for the independence movement.  They will argue that if we reach the next UK general election without an independence referendum having being held, the cause is lost anyway.  I certainly agree that an indyref should/must be held prior to the general election, but I don’t subscribe to the catastrophist view which suggests that if the current SNP leadership screw it up for us, there’s no further path forward.  Of course it makes a difference whether we retain a pro-indy majority at Westminster – and as the perverse media reaction to the SNP’s comfortable victory in 2017 demonstrates, the size of that majority matters too.  There’s also the theoretical chance of Boris Johnson cutting and running with a snap election before there’s any chance to hold an indyref, although admittedly the likelihood of that has sharply diminished recently due to the Tory corruption scandals and Johnson’s plummeting popularity south of the border.  The change in the Westminster political weather is reflected in this poll, with Labour catching up with the Tories for the first time in any Panelbase poll conducted during the current parliament.  (That said, the Tories do remain fractionally ahead of Labour on the unrounded numbers in the data tables.)

Perhaps inevitably in light of the massive SNP lead, the tables show that the SNP have been significantly more successful than other parties at retaining their voters from the 2019 election.  93% of people who voted SNP back then would still vote SNP now – with the equivalent figures for the Tories and Labour being 78% and 82% respectively.  A very significant 12% of Labour voters from 2019 would now vote SNP – it may well be that some of those people are disillusioned Corbynites.

Just 64% of Lib Dem voters from 2019 have stayed loyal – which again makes me wonder if a significant part of the Lib Dem sample from this poll consists of supporters of other unionist parties who cast a tactical vote in constituencies like East Dunbartonshire or Edinburgh West.  10% of Lib Dem voters have now drifted to the Tories, 15% to Labour, and a healthy 11% to the SNP.

This is a mildly disappointing result, but nothing disastrous – it represents only a minor margin-of-error change from the last two Panelbase polls, which both showed a 48-52 split.  It’s also a marked improvement on the result of the 2014 referendum, and is therefore an excellent starting platform for a new vote. However, it’s obviously well down on the heady results of last year (the Yes vote peaked in Panelbase polls at an astonishing 56% in the Scot Goes Pop-commissioned poll of November 2020).  That being the case, here’s my handy cut-out-and-keep guide to the SNP leadership’s interpretation of what’s been going on…

* It’s absurd to deny Nicola Sturgeon the credit for the surge in Yes support in 2020 – you can’t portray it as something that “just happened”.  It was plainly largely caused by her leadership skills during the pandemic.  However, the subsequent drop in support has, of course, nothing whatever to do with her or any other leading SNP figure.  Drops in support, unlike increases, are things that “just happen” – either that or they’re somehow caused by a small breakaway party that has received practically zero TV coverage.  “I can’t prove that, but if you don’t agree that it’s obviously true, you’re a ZOOMER.” (© Mark McGeoghegan, April 2021)  

* The large lead in 2020 was an argument against holding an independence referendum any time soon.  “We got into this wonderful position by not actually talking about independence, so we mustn’t throw it away now.”

* The disappearance of the large lead from 2020 is also, paradoxically, an argument against holding an independence referendum any time soon.  “It would be stupid to hold an unwinnable referendum. If we just keep the heid and don’t talk about independence for a few more years, maybe we’ll repeat the trick of 2020 by building up a sizeable Yes lead.  And if that happens, it’ll be even more important not to hold a referendum, because we’d only have got those Yes votes by not talking about independence, and we wouldn’t want to throw them away, would we?”

* If the thought has occurred to you that not talking about independence may actually have been responsible for the drop in Yes support between 2020 and 2021, it’s time for some deep personal introspection, because the drop in Yes support is actually your own fault.  The grassroots just haven’t been campaigning hard enough, or effectively enough.  It’s no good whingeing to the SNP about the absence of a referendum when it’s your own fault for not chapping on enough doors and persuading enough people.  But bear in mind that if you do that and Yes support starts increasing again, you won’t be able to take the credit for it, because in fact it will turn out that it was the SNP that turned things around by the sheer ferocity with which they refrained from talking about independence – and naturally you still won’t get a referendum, because that would throw the gains away.

Perhaps the strategy is “Free by 2083 – but by stealth.”

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