Hot on the heels of another recent Survation, they are back with a second poll (link to tables), this time on behalf of Progress Scotland. Whilst I’m always keen for a bit more polling diversity (I don’t believe we’ve had a YouGov, Ipsos or Savanta Scottish VI poll since the election), in this particular case it was really useful to get another Survation so soon.
As the last one was commissioned by Scotland in Union, we had the usual suspects giving it “well, of COURSE it’s a bad poll for the SNP if the YOONS commissioned it!” Well, this one was commissioned by a Pro-Independence outfit and it’s not meaningfully different. Turns out polling says what it says regardless of who commissioned it; at least, on the basics of voting intention.
The previous Survation covered the 27th – 29th of August 2024. Changes are shown as (vs that poll / vs last election). However, that was only the Holyrood vote, as it did not appear to have Westminster figures or a standard Independence question. Westminster is therefore solely versus the election, and Independence versus the June poll.
Regional Vote
Given this followed so closely on from the previous Survation, we shouldn’t expect to see any real movement here. That is indeed the case, as everything is within margin of error. That does mean that what was a slight Labour lead in the last poll becomes a slight SNP lead and that Reform UK end up tied for third with the Greens and Lib Dems, but it’s not meaningful. The Conservatives will, margin of error or not, at least be slightly relieved to be back up above what was their worst poll of the term last time.
Constituency Vote
Again, as you’d expect this is completely margin of error stuff, though this is effectively opposite case to the regional vote in going from a slight SNP lead over Labour to a tie. On the other hand, the tie that existed in the other poll between Reform UK and the Lib Dems is broken by a single point dip for the latter.
Seat Projection
Projecting that into seats might give us something like this:
Please see this page for how projections work and important caveats.
Although the SNP share is higher and Labour are lower compared to the other poll on what should be the critically important list vote, Labour end up gaining and the SNP losing seats here. That’s because Labour are up on the constituency vote by enough to gain a bunch more of those, particularly in Glasgow, and in so doing throw off the proportionality. Overall though that has very little effect on the balance of parliament, with the same majorities available out of my selection below.
Possible Majorities
Note: these majorities relate simply to passing a vote in the Scottish Parliament. They do not imply the formation of a full coalition government.
- Traffic Light: Labour, Lib Dem and Green
- Independence Bloc: SNP, Green and Alba
- Grand Coalition: SNP and Labour
- Union Bloc: Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem and Reform UK
Over on the UK Parliament side of things, it’s mostly – mostly! – margin of error movements. The exceptions are Labour and Reform UK, who have counterbalancing swings of minus and plus 4% relative to the election. That isn’t necessarily a direct transfers, but it does reflect what we’ve seen in the very few polls since thus far, which is a little bit of an unexpected new government slump for Labour. First Past the Post being what it is though, they’d still have a very comfortable majority of Scotland’s MPs with this vote share, despite the fact it’s exactly the same as the SNP.
In this case, it is very nearly a no change all around poll; there’s certainly no difference since the last poll, and only a very slight uptick for Independence versus 2014.
Hypotheticals
As ever, the last little bit of analysis concerns those hypothetical and more proportional voting systems that BBS likes to play about with. The use of pure FPTP at Westminster is an affront to democracy, and though Holyrood fares far better, AMS is still deeply imperfect. The examples here simply transpose the poll findings onto more proportional voting systems – the reality is that different systems would of course result in different voter behaviour.
You can see the comparison with the slightly distorting effect on AMS in this one; yes, the SNP are down a seat but that’s because Alba hit the 3% threshold here so pick some up, and they have to come from somewhere. Meanwhile, rather than increasing their share via constituencies, Labour actually lose out the most in a properly proportional system.
Scandinavian Style Westminster
Whereas First Past the Post makes a mockery of what the voters have said, a fully proportional system would correctly tie Labour and the SNP on seats, and give Reform UK and the Greens a Scottish voice at Westminster.
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