Sturgeon May Have Jumped Before She Was Pushed

Sturgeon May Have Jumped Before She Was Pushed

 

For almost a decade Nicola Sturgeon had led her party, the SNP, and the Scottish Parliament, but today she has announced her resignation. It has come to a shock to most, considering the SNP’s dominance in Scotland, but tougher times were ahead for her and her party. It is admirable of her to stand down for the sake of her party, as she told the media, but why exactly did she feel the need to have the SNP select a new leader?

For the last few months the Labour surge has arrived north of the border, and it has been at the expense of the SNP, though they should comfortably retain their political prominence in the next Westminster election next year, and the Scottish election in 2026. However, their dominance will be dented if polling is anything to go by.

Go back a year or so, and both Labour and the Conservatives were hovering around the 20% mark, often in the high teens; while the SNP saw many polls where they exceeded 50% support. Now in recent polls, the trends place them in the mid to low 40s, and impressive number. Their concern is Labour, who are trending in the high 20s, hitting the 30% mark in some polls. All it takes is a few nervous MPs and consistent polls not quite in the SNP’s favour close to election time, and hushed whispers of new leadership can turn into more public ridicule.

If over the next year and a half that trend of a significant Labour increase and a slow SNP decline, along with a Tory Party that are stationary in the high teens, could lead to the SNP losing a significant number of seats. Focusing on the closest election, the Westminster election that must be held by January of 2025, though most likely to be held in the latter half of 2024, we see that the outcome doesn’t look promising for the SNP.

They currently have 48 of 59 seats, with the Tories on 6, Liberal Democrats on 6, and Labour on just 1. That was with overall polling of SNP – 45%, Con – 25%, LD – 10%, Lab – 19%, back in 2019.

If trends were to hold, then we could see a rough breakdown of seats after the next election looking something like the 2017 election, which resulted in the following: SNP – 35 (37%), Con – 13 (29%), LD – 4 (7%), Lab – 7 (27%).

But with a weakened Conservative Party compared to the past two elections, and going by current polling, we could see something along the lines of these figures : SNP (30-35), Con (5-10), LD (0-5), Lab (15-20). That’s the joys of having a ‘First Past the Post’ (FPP) system of electing the candidate with the highest votes in the first and only count.

A broad 30% may not be enough for Labour to take a large number of seats, but by targeting ‘traditional Labour’ constituencies in places like Glasgow and Edinburgh, they could reclaim seats and take an amount in the high teens.

It’s far from the end of the SNP, who will still hold a majority of the 59 Westminster seats allocated to Scotland after the next election, but for Nicola Sturgeon, it may be better for her to offer the SNP a chance to alter the face and course of the party, even if only slightly, in the hopes of beating the current polling slide. It remains to be seen if she has offered her party a renewed hope of dominance, or has condemned them to a further fall in the polls without her leadership.