A Disunited Kingdom?

As we start 2021, one of the major political moments of the year will be when voters got to the polls to elect a new Scottish Parliament, currently scheduled to take place in May.

Make no mistake about it the vote could mark the start of a journey which takes Scotland out of the UK altogether.

That the SNP’s poll numbers and those for Nicola Sturgeon are extremely high for a party that first came to office in 2007 is beyond dispute.  What will be worrying Downing Street the most is the news that the 19th consecutive poll now puts support for independence in Scotland ahead of support for staying in the UK.

According to the figures from Survation for the  pro-independence Scot Goes Pop blog, with those who did not know how they would vote in another referendum excluded, 51% of those questioned said Scotland should be independent while 49% said it should not.

That said, voters will also be going to the poll in Wales this year to elect a new Senedd, a contest which now looks substantially closer than that panning out in Scotland.

According to the latest Welsh Political Barometer conducted by YouGov for ITV-Cymru Wales and Cardiff University, when questioned how they would vote in the constituency section of the vote, the parties (with changes since the last poll in November in brackets) were as follows:

Labour: 34% (-4)

Conservatives: 26% (-1)

Plaid Cymru: 22% (+2)

Greens: 6% (+3)

Reform UK: 5% (no change on Brexit Party last time)

Liberal Democrats: 4% (+1)

Others: 4% (no change)

Professor Roger Awan-Scully from Cardiff University notes that: “A uniform swing projection of the changes in party support since May 2016 indicated by this poll suggests that three constituency seats in the Senedd would change hands, with the Conservatives very narrowly gaining the Vale of Glamorgan and Vale of Clwyd from Labour, and Labour also losing Llanelli to Plaid Cymru.”

And what of the regional list section of the vote? Again, the poll found support for the parties as follows:

Conservatives: 25% (+1)

Plaid Cymru: 23% (+3)

Abolish the Assembly: 7% (no change)

Greens: 5% (+1)

Reform UK: 4% (-1)

Liberal Democrats: 4% (no change)

Others: 1% (-2)

Cardiff University notes that allowing for the constituency results already projected, and as per usual assuming uniform national swings since 2016, this new poll projects the following overall results for the Senedd’s regional list seats:

North Wales: 2 Plaid, 1 Conservative, 1 Abolish the Assembly

Mid and West Wales: 2 Labour, 1 Conservative, 1 Abolish the Assembly

South Wales West: 2 Conservative, 2 Plaid

South Wales Central: 2 Conservative, 2 Plaid

South Wales East: 2 Conservative, 2 Plaid

Overall this would mean the Senedd would look as follows:

Labour: 26 seats (24 constituency, 2 regional)

Conservatives: 16 seats (8 constituency, 8 regional)

Plaid Cymru: 15 seats (7 constituency, 8 regional)

Abolish the Assembly: 2 seats (2 regional)

Liberal Democrats: 1 seat (1 constituency)

Professor Scully concludes that: “Labour must still be long odds-on to emerge as the largest party in the Senedd after the election. But our new poll does suggest that they may be pressed harder by their Conservative and Plaid opponents than had looked likely in late 2020.”

 

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