SNP are ranked first by the largest number of Scots, but Labour and the Lib Dems have broader popularity
The question of how you determine which party is most popular is not as straightforward as it might seem. While elections do give part of the picture, voters may not be able to fully express how they feel about all the parties on offer and some voters use their vote tactically, rather than for their sincere first choice.
In July, we asked Britons to rank the main parties in order of preference, to help illustrate how voters feel about the main offerings relative to each other. Now, to greater illuminate the distinct Scottish party system, we have asked Scots to do the same.
Of the seven significant Scottish parties, the one ranked first by the most Scots is the SNP, the top choice for three in ten (29%). Labour are only narrowly behind, ranked ahead of every other option by a quarter of Scots (24%), noticeably down on the 35% of the vote share they won in July’s general election.
There are four ‘medium-sized’ parties ranked first by a similar number of Scots, with one in eight putting the Conservatives (13%) or Lib Dems (12%) at the top of their list, and one in ten (10%) placing the Greens or Reform UK above the rest. Alba are the least likely of the parties asked about to be viewed as an overall favourite, with only 2% of Scots ranking them first.
But first rankings don’t tell the full story of how popular a party is relative to others, with some clearly being more broadly liked and others more divisive when accounting for wider rankings.
For instance, while a similar number of Scots (12-13%) rank the Conservatives and Lib Dems as their absolute favourites, noticeably more place the Lib Dems higher in their full rankings. Six in ten Scots (61%) choose the Lib Dems as one of their top three parties, compared to only one in three (35%) for the Conservatives. Similarly, only 4% of the Scottish public rank the Lib Dems as their least or second-least favourite of the seven parties we asked about, compared to nearly half (47%) doing so for the Conservatives.
A similar pattern can be seen with the Greens and Reform UK. While 10% of the Scottish public give them their first preference, four in ten Scots (41%) consider Reform UK to be their least favourite of the seven largely parties, relative to only one in ten (10%) saying so of the Greens.
How do the parties compare against each other?
Taking all preferences together also allows the creation of head-to-heads, showing which party voters prefer in each pairing and avoiding the issues with second or third rankings getting split between more similar parties.
As when we looked at the views of all Britons, Labour are the ‘Condorcet winners’, meaning that they beat every other option when considered in pairs. The most one-sided ‘victories’ for Labour are against Alba and Reform UK, beating both by a margin of three-to-one (74% vs 26%). Labour are also favoured by seven in ten Scots (71%) against the Conservatives, a margin twenty points wider than amongst all Brits (61% vs 39%).
The Lib Dems also do well in this format, being the generally higher ranked party in every pairing, except for against Labour, where Scots split roughly half for Labour (51%) and half for the Lib Dems (49%).
Reform UK do not do well under these comparisons, losing against all six other parties when going ‘head-to-head’. This includes just a quarter of Scots (26%) preferring them to Labour or the Lib Dems, as well as only a third (33-34%) favouring them over the Conservatives or the SNP. Even against Alba, their tightest one-on-one, Alex Salmond’s party is chosen over Nigel Farage’s by 57% to 43% of the Scottish public.
Of course, with many of these ‘head-to-heads’ there is a strong unionist vs nationalist dimension. Unsurprisingly, unionists tend to favour unionist parties over nationalists, and vice versa. With Labour versus the SNP, for instance, while 55% of all Scots may favour Labour, those who would currently vote ‘Yes’ in an independence referendum prefer the SNP over Labour at a rate of 85% to 15%, while ‘No’ supporters split exactly the same the other way (85% to 15% towards Labour).
However, this divide is not perfect. For example, with the Conservatives versus the SNP, while only 5% of ‘Yes’ supporters go ‘against the grain’ and prefer the Tories to the pro-independence party, three in ten ‘No’ supporters (29%) rank the SNP higher than the Conservatives.
And then there are cases where both sides of the independence debate come down on the same side. When comparing rankings of Labour and Alba, both nearly six in ten ‘Yes’ supporters (58%) and over eight in ten would-be ‘No’ voters (84%) favour Labour. Plus, there’s are even some circumstances where nationalists and unionists are in effective agreement – both ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ supporters preferring the Conservatives to Reform UK at a rate of two-to-one (66% vs 34%).
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Photo: Getty
