THE SNP will remain the largest party in Scotland after the General Election – but a resurgent Labour will come a close second, according to a new mega poll.
The results come from an MRP analysis of 30,044 adults conducted by polling firm Survation, and suggest the SNP could be on to win 26 seats north of the Border.
This would fall short of a majority of the 57 Scottish seats, but would mean the SNP remain the largest Scots group at Westminster.
Labour were projected to win 24 seats in Scotland, 19 of which are currently notionally held by the SNP.
Survation’s analysis further estimated that the LibDems would win four seats in Scotland, while the Tories take three – half of the number of Scots MPs they returned under Boris Johnson in 2019.
The MRP (Multilevel Regression and Poststratification) analysis uses demographic information to estimate voting intention at constituency level. Votes in the 2019 election and more recent local elections are taken into account in the flagship modelling.
Across the whole of the UK, Survation found that Labour are set to win a record landslide, returning 487 MPs.
The Tories were projected to see a complete collapse, winning just 71 seats.
The LibDems were predicted to leapfrog the SNP into third place, winning 43 MPs across the UK.
Plaid Cymru were projected to win two or three MPs, while Reform could also win three.
NEW: Our first MRP of the 2024 General Election Labour Set for Record Breaking Majority LAB 487 CON 71 LD 43 SNP 26 RFM 3 PC 2 30,044 interviews conducted online and on the phone Fwk 22 May - 2 June Conducted on behalf of @BestForBritain@VasilSurvation looks at the findings…
— Survation. (@Survation) June 4, 2024
Survation noted: “While Labour is currently leading in 505 seats in terms of our average estimated vote share, the Conservatives fall close second within 5% of the Labour vote in 50 of those, while they come second within 10% of Labour’s vote share in a further 55 of those.
“Many seats remain in play, and we estimate that 126 seats would be decided by a margin of 5% or less if the election [were to be held] tomorrow.
“The implied national vote share from the MRP model placed Labour on 43.2%, Conservatives on 24.3%, Lib Dems on 10.4%, Reform on 11.4% and the Green Party on 4.2%.
“The SNP would receive 3.3% of the vote, and Plaid 0.6% while other parties would receive a combined vote share of 2.6%.”
The polling was commissioned by the Best for Britain campaign group and conducted from May 22 to June 2, before Nigel Farage announced his plans to stand as leader of Reform UK.
Chris Hanretty, professor of politics at Royal Holloway University of London, said: "With a month to go, there's still a lot of uncertainty out there. Reform isn't the favourite in any seat, but they've got reasonable chances in a handful.
"If they get a lucky roll of the dice, maybe they'll end up with a couple of seats. For the Conservatives, it's the opposite. Very few seats are locked in for them, and they'll be trying to defend across a very broad range of seats and hope that fine margins tilt their way."
