Ashcroft’s Scottish polling shows potential wipeout for Labour at hands of SNP

Lord Ashcroft has continued his run of constituency polling with research from 16 Scottish seats published today. With disastrous Scottish-wide polling for Labour in recent months, in some cases showing the party could be reduced to as few as four seats, some had hoped that the SNP could be largely held back on a seat-by-seat basis. According to today’s polling, this is not the case: of the seats polled, Labour only retain a lead in one.

If taken as projections (although Ashcroft himself is always keen to stress that these polls are “snapshots, not predictions”), the results would see Labour’s campaign chief and Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander lose his seat.

Below is a list of Labour seats polled, with how many points Labour trail the SNP by in brackets:

Airdrie & Shotts (-8)
Coatbridge, Chyrston & Bellshill (-3)
Cumbernauld, Kilsyth & Kirkintilloch East (-18)
Dundee West (-34)
Glasgow Central (-10)
Glasgow East (-14)
Glasgow North (-12)
Glasgow North East (Labour hold: +7)
Glasgow North West (-6)
Glasgow South (-15)
Glasgow South West (-3)
Motherwell & Wishaw (-11)
Paisley & Renfrewshire South (-8)
West Dunbartonshire (-9)

Of the above, the only Scottish Labour MP holding their seat would be Willie Bain in Glasgow North East. There is an average swing from Labour to the SNP of about 25%. The biggest implied SNP victory, on the joint biggest swing, comes in Dundee West – not altogether that surprising, as Dundee has been dubbed “Independence City”. 57% voted for Yes during last year’s referendum.

In none of the seats currently held by Labour does the party’s share of the overall vote drop by any less than 10 points, and in only six of the 14 does the vote drop by less than 20 points. In Glasgow East, Labour are polling 25 points under their 2010 result.

Two Lib Dem seats were also polled: Gordon and Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey. Both see SNP gains, with Alex Salmond winning in Gordon and Labour dropping from second to third in Danny Alexander’s seat in Inverness.

You can see full tables here (click to enlarge):

Meanwhile, in this morning’s Guardian, Gordon Brown argues that “there is no good reason why the United Kingdom should fall apart”. However, he claims the future of the union is being threatened by a mishandled reaction to the Scottish referendum by the Conservatives. He accuses them of attempting of “advancing the English interest at the expense of both Scotland and Britain” in their English Votes for English Laws (EVEL) proposals, which were announced at 7am on the morning after the referendum.

“Instead of finding a statesmanlike way of bringing Scotland back in, the government did the opposite,” the former Prime Minister claims.

Rather than being remembered for keeping the UK together, Brown suggests that if he carries on this path the legacy of David Cameron could be the opposite:

“The former prime minister Lord North is remembered for only one thing – losing America. Will history remember David Cameron for just one thing too – that on the morning of 19 September 2014 he lit the fuse that eventually blew the union apart?”

UPDATE: Jim Murphy, leader of Scottish Labour, has released the following statement in response to the Ashcroft’s poll:

“These polls show that Scottish Labour is well behind and has a big gap to close. 

“But in the end the only people who will benefit from these polls are David Cameron and the Tories.

“It is a simple fact that the single biggest party gets to form the next government.

“The more seats the SNP get from Labour, the more likely it is the Tories will be the biggest party and David Cameron will get into government through the back door. 

“That would be a terrible outcome for Scotland but it’s what might happen if Scotland votes SNP.”