New Panelbase poll finds Alba are not the toxic entity that the likes of John Nicolson want to portray them as

A few people wrote to me almost simultaneously this morning to ask if the new poll results on the Alba website were real.  The answer is yes, its a perfectly real poll – it’s one of the Alba-related questions I mentioned a few days ago from the recent multi-client Panelbase survey.  Here are the key findings:

I’ve thought long and hard about how to cover this poll, because on the one hand I’m an Alba member and am keen to see evidence of the party making strides forward, but on the other hand, long-term readers will spot instantly that this poll is very similar to the type of “Archie Stirling” poll that I heavily criticised Stuart Campbell for running a few years ago to try to get the idea of a Wings Party off the ground.  I wouldn’t have much credibility if I didn’t point out that some of the exact same flaws apply here.  The operative word, though, is “some”, because if I recall correctly the Wings poll used the phrase “would you consider voting for…” in order to maximise the positive result.  The Alba poll is a bit more direct because it asks “would you vote for…”

Let’s start by looking at the positives.  The poll undoubtedly shows that Alba are not the toxic entity that some SNP politicians (for example John Nicolson) would fondly like to believe.  The mention of the name Alba was not enough to send voters scurrying for the hills – if the circumstances are right, well over a third of current Yes supporters are open to voting Alba.  Even a non-trivial minority of Labour voters are open to the idea – which is potential gold dust for the Yes movement, because to state the obvious those people are not doing the independence cause much good by voting Labour.

However, Alba are claiming the poll shows them winning more than twenty list seats at Holyrood.  That’s obviously a bit far-fetched.  To remind you of what an “Archie Stirling” poll is, in the run-up to the 2007 Holyrood election, the wealthy theatre producer Archie Stirling (father of the actress Rachael Stirling and ex-husband of Diana Rigg) commissioned YouGov to ask respondents if they would consider voting for his new Scottish Voice party.  Around 20% said they would.  He then put out a press release which convinced several newspapers to breathlessly report that Scottish Voice was on course to win dozens of list seats.  But when the election came around, Scottish Voice took just 0.2% of the list vote, and weren’t even within light-years of winning any seats.

The point, of course, is that if you single out just one small party and ask poll respondents if they would consider voting for that party, or would vote for that party if certain circumstances apply, a lot of people will answer “yes” because they’re trying to be reasonable and can’t find any fault with the proposition being put to them.  It’s a very different matter if that party is instead presented – as it will be on the ballot paper – as just one of a menu of parties all in competition with each other, and from which only one option can be selected.  What would have been a more meaningful question to ask would have been something along the lines of –

Even that would have been a highly leading question wording, but it would have produced a better indication of Alba’s potential vote (or perhaps a better way of putting it is their potential maximum vote).  You can only really know if voters are willing to switch from SNP to Alba if you give them an SNP option and they select Alba instead.

The other thing I would say is that the breakthrough Alba are claiming from the Panelbase poll entirely hinges on the premise set out in the question wording that a list vote for Alba would increase the overall number of seats held by pro-indy parties.  That points to a repeat of the 2021 “supermajority” strategy, which was dependent on urging people to vote SNP on the constituency ballot and Alba on the list.  If so, I’d gently suggest there needs to be some joined-up thinking here, because I saw very senior Alba people on social media last night saying that nobody should vote for the SNP ever again because of the GRR Bill, and even equating a vote for the SNP as a vote for Jimmy Savile.  That kind of rhetoric is going to have to be toned down massively if we don’t want voters to perceive the idea of Alba working with the SNP to produce a supermajority as an obvious confidence trick.  Furthermore, Alba will have to be very careful not to split the pro-indy vote in a Westminster general election conducted under first-past-the-post, because if it’s seen that Alba are happy enough to reduce the number of pro-indy seats in one election, few voters will believe that Alba are motivated by a desire to increase the number of pro-indy seats at the following election.

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