The SNP voters who are still resistant to Labour

There are similar political hardcores at work in the Scottish context too. Keir Starmer and Labour are clearly now a government about to happen: Starmer is competent, capable, centrist, and a uncapitalised conservative – precisely the kind of politician that should and does thrive in British politics. His party has also seen a small but consistent rise in support in Scotland. We’re even starting to hope that it will happen, really.

Except that the polls in Scotland are interesting and eccentric and frustrating even because of a political hardcore that’s larger and even more resilient than the Tory one. What the polls show is that, despite Labour’s thirtysomething lead in the UK, in Scotland the SNP is still at 45% for voting intention at Westminster. Considering how much the ground is shifting, the fact that so many people are still standing on the same spot is remarkable.

On the face of it, the explanation for the SNP remaining static in this way while Labour improves is that most of the Labour converters – people like me – are coming from the Lib Dems or the Conservatives and it’s backed up by the small print of the polls. The percentage of former Scottish Tory voters who say they would now vote Labour has doubled since 2019 whereas the number of SNP voters who’ve shifted to Labour has barely moved. The hardcore is showing little sign of softening.

In the end, it may all prove to be beside the point. For a start, there aren’t many seats in Scotland that are marginal between Labour and the SNP. And like Blair in ’97, the votes in England may be enough to win the next election for Labour regardless. Sadly, this could allow the SNP to continue to argue that Scotland doesn’t get the governments it votes for, although that argument is obviously going to be much less effective against a Labour government than it has been against a Tory one.

The reasons so many SNP voters are reluctant to shift to Labour are also worth exploring further because they may indicate whether there’s hope of change to come. The most obvious is that lots of Scottish voters are worried about the cost of living and ordinarily this would incline them towards Labour. Except that many of these voters are also unhappy with the current constitutional set-up and, for whatever reason, the second trumps the first. It may lead to a bizarre situation in which left-leaning Scottish voters will vote SNP even though it might make a Labour government less likely.

However, speaking to some SNP voters over the last few days, I’ve been struck by a number of other factors that seem to be bubbling under – factors which make a further Labour recovery in Scotland tricky – and the big one is Brexit. For whatever reason, renewed membership of the EU alongside ending membership of the UK has been a kind of totem for many SNP voters. The problem is that Labour remains committed to “making Brexit work” (if such a thing is possible) and that makes it harder for SNP switherers to switch to Labour.

There are other factors at play as well which go to the heart of how some SNP supporters see themselves. I was speaking to one the other day who was talking about his antipathy to “the establishment” and how Keir Starmer, for him, represents more of it. It’s something I’ve heard before: there are SNP voters, particularly younger ones, who see the Yes movement as the countercultural, even rebellious choice, and even though the SNP is very much the establishment in Scotland, it’s something Labour will struggle to counter, particularly with a relatively conservative figure as Sir Keir as leader.

None of this means Labour can’t make more progress if we assume there’s more of the SNP vote that’s potentially soft. The fact that the Tories have gone so loony and extreme right-wing of late also makes it harder for the SNP’s traditional “red Tory” or “vote Labour, get Tory” insults to stick. Labour is now offering a clear alternative to the Conservatives and SNP voters who were until recently Labour supporters may be tempted back.

Some research by the Scottish Fabians is quite encouraging in this regard. Their chair Martin McCluskey told The Herald recently that the focus groups they had conducted showed that many voters were on the fence about who to support at a general election. Some had already made the switch from SNP to Labour as the best option to beat the Tories, he said, but he thought more would potentially follow.

The big question is whether it will be enough. Assuming Labour revives a bit in Scotland at the next election and takes a few seats from the SNP but assuming also that the Tories collapse and lose some seats to the SNP, we could end up broadly where we are with the SNP getting about 45 MPs. Labour might still win the election of course based on the votes in England and Wales but it will be a curious reversal of British political history if there is a Labour government that England voted for but Scotland didn’t.

One other final factor may prove important, assuming that an independence referendum doesn’t happen next year and the SNP fights the general election on the basis that it’s a de facto referendum. Nicola Sturgeon says this is what will happen, but there are unionist voters who are instinctively Labour or Lib Dem but “lend” their vote to the SNP as a way of harming the Tories. The question is: what will they do?

Some may still vote SNP. Some may ignore the “de facto” idea altogether. But surely there will be others who have been swithering between Labour and the SNP who will rebel against the idea of the SNP telling them how their vote is to be interpreted. In fact, it may be that Nicola Sturgeon’s strategy gives some voters the push they need towards Labour. And how funny would that be? You get the chance to vote Yes to independence but you end up voting Labour instead.

Read more by Mark Smith:

Four things Scottish unionists should never say

Scotland is still caught in the 'Local Hero trap'