ballotbox.scot
Scottish elections and polling data. Not my polls. OG 'Britain Elects but Scottish'. PR fan account. Trans rights are human rights.
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I will be honest and say that in at least one case given it was one of the purveyors of the finest bit of interpretative cheekiness I've ever witnessed ("Since Yes/No is better for Indy than Leave/Remain, former is biased and latter is neutral") I'm perhaps inclined towards certain assumptions!
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Also a sense of not misrepresenting these figures explicitly but perhaps leaving the possibility of misrepresentation on the table; it's also important to be clear that "Reform voters equally SNP as Lab in 2021" =/= "SNP and Lab voters in 2021 equally Reform now", given 2.2x diff in voter pools.
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Yes, indeed, and that's a point I've been making for years myself: voters don't move in the nice, easy ways partisans assume. It is notable and remarkable that roughly as many current Reform voters were SNP as Labour in 2021, but I was getting some (for want of a better term) hack QTs over-egging it
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I think we are disagreeing. I don't agree with this highlighted claim; or rather, the idea of pointing at Swinney and going "it's all his fault if someone who voted SNP in 2021 and Labour in 2024 is now Reform, Sarwar, who that" is the kind of hackery I dislike people using my work to support.
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That's why the SNP's polling has been almost flat over the past year, whilst Labour's has cratered as Reform surged. The damage has been done already. The remaining SNP voter base after last year has a much more limited propensity to go to Reform and thus further losses unlikely to be substantial
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Right but the point that is made - I thought very clearly, I even gave it its own little conclusions post - in the thread is the SNP isn't *losing* support to Reform now, it has already *lost* that support last year, much of it, initially, to Labour.
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It certainly rubbishes the idea that no SNP voter would go Reform, but the proportions are very different and for SNP quite small. This amounts to circa 3.4% of total 2021 vote, vs SNP winning 47.7%. Labour also shedding 3.4% but off of 21.6% is twice the propensity and, crucially, vs 2024 is dire.
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Sorry, did a message go out in a group chat for lines to take? You all know fine well that 0.4% difference in a national poll is a statistical tie, behave yourselves.
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It is very important to remember margin of error exists so this is a statistical tie, and that as a proportion of people who voted for each party in 2021, the Labour propensity to have swung behind Reform is more than twice that of the SNP. (Circa 3.4% points out of 47.7% vs 3.4% out of 21.6%)
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That didn't happen since May this year though.
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No, that isn't the case: this is the proportion of current Reform voters that come from other parties previous voters, not the proportion of other parties previous voters going to reform; in 2021 there were twice as many SNP voters as Labour, hence, half the likelihood!
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Yes, there's roughly 17 Reform UK councillors at the moment (some oddities with what Aberdeenshire Council is listing atm), but most defected before May which is when the recent chaos started to engulf those councils
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"That set" is those in over the past month or so (i.e. since the start of May)
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Mostly Independent (this is where most councillors that leave their parties end up), a few resigned, a bunch to "Progressive Change North Lanarkshire", two to Alba, and four sadly died in office.
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Chaos in Conservative groups in three council areas driving that decline. Of that 17, down 3 in Aberdeenshire, 4 in South Ayrshire, and 8 in Dumfries and Galloway. Other 2 are one apiece in Fife and Aberdeen. Only 4 of that set to Reform though, the rest all went Independent (or formed local groups)
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Anyway, a lesson learned for me again: you simply cannot argue with people so strongly partisan they've got their party identity in their handle.
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Oh, you ran an exit poll for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse did you? It gave you more accurate data than what Norstat or Survation have found? Please do send it my way, I'd be thrilled to see it.
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Yes, according to reputable national polling it does. As outlined in the thread and the analysis piece you took your screenshot from, it's likely that on average as many 2021 SNP as Labour voters now back Reform, and given how in line with polling the swings here were, I don't see it differing much.
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Facts are indeed facts and there is nothing more exasperating than tiresome party hacks screaming and howling against those they don't like. It's stupid when SNP folk deny there are any SNP -> Reform movers, and it's equally stupid to pretend that's a bigger bloc than Labour -> Reform.
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There were also 9,175 fewer valid votes cast at this election compared to 2021; equivalent to 25.3% of all votes cast in 2021. In addition there are four years of voter movement through moving in and out of the constituency, reaching voting age, and, alas, human mortality.
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Sir, are you having a laugh? You used one of my charts in your previous response to this gentleman, and prior to that you've offered nothing more than anecdata. You can't use my work when it suits and dismiss it when it doesn't, especially when I'm rooting it in data from national polling.
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(I would add, as I've already seen one critical remark, this isn't a criticism of the Herald: it's quite common and indeed important that papers present conflicting perspectives. I just think, in this case, it's very funny what those perspectives are!)
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Turnout was actually relatively high in by-election terms; indeed, the turnout for this by-election wasn't even 1% lower than the turnout in this seat for the full election in 2011!
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It is rather on the nose THIS is on the front page of the same paper I'm quoted saying THAT in..! A real life example of how different my work as an (as I am now described...) "elections expert" is from punditry. I'm here to inform, not to put myself in the orbit of drama or try to set a narrative!
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I am making highly discerning use of the arcane concept known as "opinion polls" and specifically "tables" which show how many people in the sample voted SNP in 2021/2024 but are now saying they'd vote Reform. I thought that was rather obvious from the thread.
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An argument well worth having, in my mentions, in response to Scottish politics.
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Right come on lads gies peace
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Similar I think to 2016 when a coincidental matchup in SNP list vote decrease and Green increase nationally was taken as evidence of tactical voting for the latter, when actually under the hood a -8% SNP vs +1% Green spoke to direct SNP to Conservative shifting in the North East
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I'm not sure if this is just additional input or if the suggestion is it contradicts the content of this thread but to be clear, it doesn't.
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It's a slightly wonky system aye, but I value the independent nature of the platform
You can just set it to a manual renewal and it won't automatically take any more cash off you; a clever further trick is to set your donation as "per year", so it doesn't ask for another e.g. fiver for a while!
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Addendum: That explains why the Holyrood constituency vote chart on the BBS website looks like this, with very little impact on SNP following Reform's rise but huge damage to Labour. The SNP already lost that support, Labour are losing it afresh. ballotbox.scot/scottish-par...
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Conclusions?
1. Reform are drawing most of their support from long-standing Pro-Union voters;
2. BUT they are clearly picking up some of the "anti-system" voters that were SNP in 2021;
3. HOWEVER SNP already lost most of those voters in 2024 leaving Labour most vulnerable to further Reform growth
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If HLS mirrored national distributions (which it won't, but for argument's sake), Reform's 7088 votes would come from (vs SP21 Constituency / vs GE24):
SNP ~ 1296 / 305
Labour ~ 1270 / 2032
Conservative ~ 2922 / 1143
Lib Dem ~ 203 / 432
Reform UK ~ N/A / 2515
Other/Non-Voters ~ 1397 / 661
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Source of Reform votes (vs SP21 Constituency / vs GE24):
SNP ~ 18.3% / 4.3%
Labour ~ 17.9% / 28.7%
Conservative ~ 41.2% / 16.1%
Lib Dem ~ 2.9% / 6.1%
Reform UK ~ N/A / 35.5%
Others/Non-Voters ~ 19.7% / 9.3%
Near equality between SNP and Labour in 2021 terms, but huge imbalance versus 2024.
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Correction: Labour are 8559 which is 31.6% (still -2%, rounding innit), which is a reminder that us Central Belters could really do with enunciating better, especially when it's guaranteed impatient party activists won't let us hear the whole number before they cheer, rude
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Labour constituency vote on a national swing like this: 19.6%
Labour constituency vote in most recent poll: 19%
SNP constituency vote on a national swing like this: 30.9%
SNP constituency vote in most recent poll: 33%
Reform much further off but for top two, result consistent with national polls.
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A sort of balance of caveats here as well: a 2.1% Labour majority, with 3.6% for Pro-Independence parties who won't stand for the constituency in 2026, which will help the SNP. At the same time, don't expect as high a Reform share outside the white heat of a by-election, which will help Labour.