New poll shows SNP drop to second in West Dunbartonshire ahead of general election 

By Bill Heaney

Beware the Ides of March. A new poll shows the SNP now trails Labour in three key areas of Scotland covering 18 Nat-held seats.

It puts Humza Yousaf’s party’s coat on a shaky nail here on Clydeside and in the Argyll and Bute constituency which takes in from Helensburgh  to Oban and Beyond.

Provost Douglas McAllister, the Labour candidate, must be astonished at the numbers the analysis by Survation for communications agency Quantum Communications after it showed his party held a five-point lead on the SNP – 3% more than the last Survation poll.

It’s difficult to believe the outcome of the survey since the Provost has been one of the leading lights in the West Dunbartonshire Council Labour Group which has had a disastrous year during which it has had to announce a whole ream of unpopular local authority budget cuts.

And face the shame of an employment appeal tribunal where it was confirmed the council had wrongly dismissed, victimised and bullied a disabled member of staff who is said to have been awarded around £1 million in compensation for the abject way he was treated.

Martin Docherty Hughes MP (SNP), Provost Douglas McAllister (Labour) and Brendan O’Hara MP and Martin Docherty Hughes giving their backing to former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

And there will be more to be announced in Church Street next Wednesday when the council meets in what promises to be a full to overflowing public gallery in the packed Burgh Hall for the final budget announcement.

A week is a long time in politics however and all politics is said to be local even down to the fact that Labour’s opponent Martin Docherty-Hughes MP, whose father is a Donegal man, will be supported by the large Irish diaspora in Whitecrook and beyond.

Provost McAllister’s father, Jack,  was a popular local Labour politician in the Fifties and Sixties.

One pro-Nationalist news outlet claims the new survey result would mean the SNP winning 38 seats at the election – 10 less than in 2019. But a closer look into the research shows the SNP is especially vulnerable in three key areas of Scotland where they currently hold 18 seats and Labour has just one.

Around a sixth of voters remain undecided meaning there is all to play for ahead of the general election later this year. According to the poll, the SNP will win 38.5% of the vote with Labour on 33.7% once those who don’t know or would not say are removed.

The Conservatives have dropped to 14.6% – the lowest polled by Survation since Liz Truss was Prime Minister – with the Liberal Democrats, who may not field a candidate in West Dunbartonshire,  on 7.7%. It means Unionist parties will comfortably win the highest number of votes in the election, although the poll predicts they face a wipe-out.

If undecideds who are likely to vote in an election are included, the SNP is on 32.7%, Labour on 27.3%, the Tories on 12.3% and the Liberal Democrats on 6.9%. Over 15% of those likely to vote remain undecided at the moment.

Geographically, the SNP now trails Labour in the Central Scotland, West Scotland and the Highland and Islands Holyrood regional constituencies, which could be crucial in the 18 seats the SNP will be defending. It boosts Labour’s hopes of winning back its heartlands in Lanarkshire and also suggests seats in North Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, Dunbartonshire, Inverclyde and Argyll and Bute will turn red, along with the Western Isles.

However, the SNP holds leads in the other parts of Scotland, including the North East where the survey suggests it would win 47% of the vote. It also leads in Glasgow where other polls have predicted an SNP wipe-out.