Labour ‘within touching distance’ of 30 Scottish MPs, poll suggests

Savanta has carried out its first poll in Scotland since the General Election campaign started last week.

Savanta’s Chirs Hopkins said John Swinney had ‘managed to stem the SNP’s bleeding’ since taking over as party leader (Andrew Milligan/PA)

Labour could be “within touching distance” of returning 30 MPs from Scotland, according to the latest opinion poll.

Research by Savanta in its first Scottish poll since the election campaign was launched had support for Sir Keir Starmer’s party unchanged at 37% when looking at Westminster voting intentions.

The SNP were trailing on 33%, according to the study, with 17% saying they would vote Conservative, 7% backing the Liberal Democrats and 5% saying they plan to vote for other parties.

Analysis suggested that result, if replicated in the July 4 General Election, could see Labour – who won only one seat in Scotland in 2019 – return 28 MPs from north of the border.

Meanwhile, the SNP, who won 48 seats in the last general election, could see that total plunge to 18.

The Tories and the Liberal Democrats would remain broadly where they are, with the results suggesting they could have six and five Scottish MPs respectively.

Savanta questioned 1,067 Scottish adults between Friday May 24 and Tuesday May 28 for the research, which was carried out for The Scotsman newspaper.

Labour held one Scottish MP after the last general election, and our poll suggests they could be within touching distance of 30

Chris Hopkins, Savanta

With support for the SNP unchanged in both voting intentions for both Westminster and the Holyrood constituency vote, and up four points from its previous poll in the Holyrood list vote, Savanta’s political research director Chris Hopkins said: “Our first poll since John Swinney was confirmed as Scotland’s First Minister suggests that he has managed to stem the SNP’s bleeding.”

He added: “In a sense this is positive news for the SNP, but is also a likely consequence of him simply not being Humza Yousaf.”

Looking to the General Election, Mr Hopkins said: “There’s plenty of campaign yet to go, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the bigger picture – Labour held one Scottish MP after the last general election, and our poll suggests they could be within touching distance of 30.

“Starmer’s focus on Scotland looks like it may well be paying off, even if this stalemate holds until election day.”

For Holyrood voting intentions the poll had the SNP narrowly ahead of Labour on both the constituency and list sections of the vote.

On the constituency ballot, support for the SNP was unchanged at 35%, with Labour down one point to 34%.

Among the other parties support for the Tories was down one point to 17% with the Liberal Democrats unchanged on 8%.

For the list vote, SNP support was up by four points to 30%, with Labour down three points to 29%. Tory support was unchanged at 8%, with the Greens on 10%, a drop of one point, while the Liberal Democrats were static on 10%

The next Holyrood election is due to take place in May 2026.