A Westminster election: The Scottish factor

With the prospect of an autumn election firming up all the time, one issue Gordon Brown has to consider is the impact of the SNP resurgence in Scotland.

Ruaridh Nicoll argues that this factor has been over-estimated:

while it’s true that an early election would cause
Alexander difficulties, it could do Scottish Labour good. Like the
Tories, they need something to focus on. And the truth is that, in
difficult times, they would not do too badly, and certainly not as
badly as everyone seems to fear.

‘We know that in votes for the
Scottish and UK parliaments, people vote very differently,’ says James
Mitchell, professor of politics at Strathclyde University. Sometimes,
in the same poll, nearly a quarter of votes shift when people are asked
about their desires for representation in Westminster or Holyrood. (Observer)

Alex Salmond is nevertheless talking up the SNP’s chances:

Speaking on The Politics Show on BBC Scotland
yesterday, Mr Salmond said he believed the Prime Minister would call an
autumn election and that he was sure the SNP would do well.

He said: "I’m certain the SNP would make an advance and I think that would be a good thing for Scotland." (Herald)

Can they both be right? Well consider the figures quoted in the Herald article:

Recent polls put the SNP on 35% on a Westminster ballot, with Labour on 40%.

The Conservatives are on 11% and the Liberal Democrats on 9%.

Put those numbers into Martin Baxter’s Scottish election calculator and you get a very interesting result:

This prediction suggests that the SNP would treble their seats, even though Labour would hold all theirs while the Lib Dems and the Conservatives would be wiped out. Labour really would be the party of the union then.

The detailed table below shows that Labour would actually lose Ochil and South Perthshire to the SNP, but would gain Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale from the Tories. All of the Lib Dem seats would fall to the SNP, including those of Menzies Campbell and Charles Kennedy.

The prospect of another Scottish Tory wipe-out is clearly plausible given that they are defending a single marginal seat. While I find it hard to believe that the Lib Dem result would be anything like this bad in practice, the polls do show a sustained swing from them to the SNP, that has only accelerated since the Holyrood election. Their best hope may lie in their usual campaign bounce combined with the Westminster factor favouring UK-wide parties.

As an aside, inputting either version of the Holyrood results into Baxter produces SNP gains from Labour as well as the LibDems. However, since that was a P.R. election, the Westminster opinion polls are probably more relevant.

On that basis, the message is clear. Labour could lose a couple of seats or gain a few, but as far as Gordon Brown’s election decision is concerned, the Scottish polls are not a deal-breaker. For the SNP, an autumn election may be a historic opportunity to emerge as the second largest Scottish contingent at Westminster.

The Conservatives and the Lib Dems have most to worry about. While the Tories are more likely to be wiped out completely, the Lib Dems have more to fear in terms of the impact on their overall UK result.