Polling: SNP on track to be in ‘most powerful position at Westminster in our history’, says Jenny Gilruth

The SNP is on track to be in the “most powerful position at Westminster in our history”, Jenny Gilruth has claimed.  

The deputy first minister reacted to new polling suggesting the SNP could receive 34 per cent of the vote at the next general election.

The polling by Survation, which surveyed 2,039 adults aged 16+ in Scotland, on behalf of the SNP between 18 September and 12 October, found that support for Labour, which had the second-largest vote share, was 20 per cent.

In the 2024 general election, Labour won 37 Scottish seats, with a vote share of 35 per cent, and in turn slashed the SNP’s seats to just nine, despite having 30 per cent of the vote share.  

According to the polling, Reform UK closely follow Labour on 18 per cent, while the Conservatives and the Lib Dems are on 12 and eight per cent respectively.  

The Scottish Greens would receive six per cent, while other political parties would collectively receive three per cent of the vote.
Reacting to the polling, Gilruth said: “Everyone knows that Westminster is heading for a hung parliament and the SNP will wield significant influence. We will be in the most powerful position at Westminster in our history, and Andy Burnham will not be able to ignore Scotland’s right to decide our own future.
“Andy Burnham made John Swinney and Scotland’s independence the focus of his conference speech and he is rushing up to Scotland to get in on our conference too. He is fast becoming defined by independence, and there is no doubt that our constitutional future is the dominant question of these islands.
“And this poll makes it abundantly clear that if there is a 'Burnham bounce', then it stops at Berwick.”

Burnham ruled out a second independence referendum during a meeting with Swinney in the summer.  

Survation’s polling shows that, when don’t know answers are removed, support for independence is at 52 per cent compared with 48 per cent of respondents who would vote no.