Why new poll shows SNP's secret weapon is apathy and how Labour can win May 2026 election
Amid widespread disinterest, the SNP risks emerging as the least worst option for enough voters to retain power at Holyrood
All polls should be treated with caution and this week’s from Survation is no exception. For starters, it is considerably at odds with what has been happening in Scotland when real people go to vote.
If Survation was right, Labour would not have won the Hamilton by-election and Reform would not have got 26 per cent of the vote. Neither would Labour have won Scotland’s most recent council by-election in East Renfrewshire, as a gain from the SNP with an 11 per cent swing.
Polling questions are different from actual choices when issues are presented. If a mood for change can be generated, old opinion polls may be of little relevance by next May. At present, that mood is not strong enough to overcome reluctant acquiescence in more of the same.
Negative ratings for SNP and independence
In that low spirit, the poll is interesting for the contradictions it threw up. On every policy issue, except railways, the numbers made grim reading for the SNP. Their negative ratings ranged from minus 17 on the NHS to minus 38 per cent on council funding and minus 39 on housing.
Neither has Mr Swinney’s renewed emphasis on independence done them much good on that front. Fewer than one in seven place it among their top five issues. To the question “leave or remain”, there was a 20 per cent lead for staying within the UK, even when the question is entirely hypothetical. The demand of a risen people it is not.
The net conclusion is that the SNP has regressed into a traditional comfort zone for nationalist parties which work out that they can govern forever with occasional lip-service to the policy that brought them into existence. That keeps the faithful in line while the revised raison d’etre is simply to retain power.
However, the question which all this still begs is: “If the SNP is not doing very well, why is everyone else doing worse?” The answer, I think, is that nobody is sending out a sufficiently convincing prospect of change. So amidst widespread disinterest, the mediocrity we know risks emerging as the least worst option.
Calamitous first impressions
On the positive side, the fragility of that reasoning also creates an opportunity. Over the next eight months, the challenge, particularly for Labour, is to persuade another 10 per cent or so that the fruits of devolution do not have to be such a disappointment (as suggested by the Survation numbers) and that Scotland really does deserve better.
That door is open for as long as the SNP’s lead rests on negativity about the alternatives, far more than enthusiasm for what they are delivering which, as Survation suggests, is largely non-existent.
Pushing at that door has been made a lot harder by the fairly calamitous first impressions the incoming Labour government made upon the UK electorate. It probably remains a prerequisite that, for Labour’s ratings in Scotland to improve, there is also some upturn in the fortunes of the Starmer government; a message that Douglas Alexander is doubtless driving home.
One clear message the Survation poll sent out was that by far the most important issue to Scottish voters is the state of our NHS. This is entirely appropriate in the week we learned from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine that more than 800 Scots died unnecessarily last year because of excessive waits for accident and emergency services. If that figure does not offend, what will? Even worse, the number is up by one-third over the previous year.
A referendum on the NHS
In common with many other statistics, the evidence is of a Scottish NHS which is not getting better but struggling even more at the point of delivery, despite all the additional money that the Scottish Government has received in the past year.
That case is ably prosecuted, week in, week out, by Jackie Baillie. Equally, the reforms needed to drive change must be spelt out and localised to every constituency. It helps that the reforms and investment promised in England are starting to bear fruit in terms of falling waiting lists. Per capita, the NHS in Scotland gets even more money, so why not here?
Making next May’s election a referendum on how the NHS in Scotland has been managed is not a guarantor of success, but it will certainly be a key element in achieving it. Fifty-seven per cent of the population cannot be wrong about their top priority. But the message of change and improvement has to be credible, sustained and directly relevant to every voter.
While money is important, and the Scottish Government has plenty of it, there must be fundamental questioning of how it is spent and prioritised. This should start, on the first day of a Labour-led government, with a line-by-line review of current priorities and commitments in search of waste and duplication as well as hidden silos of spending. There is no shortage of them in our quango statelet.
Working together, not permanent conflict
Returning powers to local communities is a crucial theme to promote. Centralisation to Edinburgh has not been good for the reputation of devolution or for delivery and accountability in every part of Scotland. A commitment to reversing that process is not about money but is critical to a message about the offer of change that Scotland needs.
Whatever the difficulties in Whitehall, another persistent theme for Labour should be that two governments working together in Scotland’s interests is a lot better bet than the permanent conflict and manoeuvring for position that has long been the norm.
Get the messages of change right and Labour can win in Scotland, to a mighty sigh of relief. But if voters are not convinced that anything much would change, why would they bother? The SNP’s secret weapon is apathy, not enthusiasm.
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