SNP will lose West Dunbartonshire at general election according to new poll which forecasts tartan wipe-out

New analysis suggests the SNP will win just 25 seats when the country goes to the polls having previously won 48 in 2019 at the last general election, spelling trouble for Humza Yousaf

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - JANUARY 12: Humza Yousaf, Scottish First Minister and leader of the SNP speaks to the media during the launch of the SNP general election campaign at Òran Mór on January 12, 2024 in Glasgow, Scotland. Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf launched the SNP's 2024 General Election Campaign in Glasgow, outlining how decisions made in Westminster had 'damaged the Scottish economy' and calling on voters to 'kick the Tories out of Scotland'. (Photo by Robert Perry/Getty Images)

Humza Yousaf is on course to lose seats at the general election.

By Bill Heaney

The West Dunbartonshire seat in the House of Commons is forecast to return to Labour at the General Election later this year.

Pundits are saying that Humza Yousaf has been handed another brutal pre-election blow with a detailed new poll suggesting the SNP will lose almost half of the seats they won in 2019.

Analysis by YouGov suggests just 25 SNP MPs will be returned in Scotland this year.

Martin Docherty Hughes MP and Provost Douglas McAllister will slug it out here.

If the prediction is correct then this would mean that Douglas McAllister, Provost of West Dunbartonshire Council, would take the place of from Martin Docherty-Hughes, the sitting SNP MP.

However, there could be upsets across the board if Labour and Lib Dem voters in those constituencies opt to vote for the best candidate to beat the SNP.

Because the Tories nor the LibDems would not have sufficient support to ensure that neither Labour nor the SNP would win.

An Independent candidate could upset the apple cart with a strong campaign highlighting for example the terrible wounds both Labour and the SNP have inflicted on public services with £ millions of budget cuts over the past ten years.

It is a widely held view that Labour is on course for an historic landslide across the UK, meaning some voters may feel relaxed about lending their vote to the candidate best placed to oust the SNP, but they have no reasons to count their chickens.

Twenty-five MPs would fall well short of the majority of MPs that SNP leader Yousaf thinks could trigger Independence negotiations, although they would emerge as the largest party. Labour would win 24 seats, 23 more than they have right now, while the Tories and Lib Dems would win four each.

The poll, which forecasts defeat for Martin Docherty Hughes, has been described as the most authoritative so far. YouGov’s method correctly forecast the 2017 and 2019 elections, according to the Daily Telegraph.

All this comes after the man who was one of the “masterminds” behind the campaign to leave the UK in 2014 admitted focus on independence had waned.

Stephen Noon said things had “changed dramatically in Scotland” with Nicola Sturgeon’s court defeat in her bid to force a second referendum one of the main reasons for this.

Stephen Noon was the chief strategist for the Yes campaign but reckons momentum has stalled.

Speaking to BBC Scotland, he added: “We’ve gone through a period where the referendum was the central political focus, the energy was around a referendum. And then because of the Supreme Court decision and Nicola Sturgeon stepping down, the political energy has switched.

“And so people’s focus is less on who to vote for to get a referendum, because that is not on the immediate horizon. So people are focusing more on things like who would be the next UK Government, what the SNP’s record has been in Scotland, and so the job for the SNP is more difficult.”

The seats the SNP will lose, according to the latest poll:

Boundary changes mean there will be fewer constituencies contested in Scotland this year. But using notional majorities, the SNP is on course to take just 25 seats compared with 48 in 2019.

Since then, two SNP MPs have defected to Alba, Angus MacNeil sits as an independent, Lisa Cameron defected to the Tories and Labour won the Rutherglen and Hamilton West seat after Margaret Ferrier was given the boot by voters.