This month’s Holyrood forecast has Reform poised to form the opposition in the Scottish Parliament, ahead of Labour. On last month’s forecast, the SNP are unchanged on 64 seats – being one seat short of a majority. Reform are up 4 from late January, to 20 seats, overtaking Labour – whose expected showing of 16 seats would relegate them to third place again. Otherwise, the Greens are up one, there is no change for the Lib Dems, but the Tories are down three seats to fifth place on 8 seats. It is important to remember, though, that the difference between the Greens, Lib Dems and Tories is very marginal, and there is the potential for any number of scenarios where each of them would be third, fourth or fifth under this forecast. It is worth recognising, though, how similarly this forecast mirrors the results of the last Holyrood election despite the turbulence of Scottish politics over the last five years – with the only glaring difference being Reform’s replacement of the Tories as the major right-wing party of Scottish politics, even though the predecessors of Farage’s current outfit at their peaks achieved very minimal political representation in Scotland. Moreover, this projection illustrates a major ideological shift in how the right wing in Scottish politics operates – with Ruth Davidson’s liberal conservatism being discarded in favour of an acceptance of Farage’s more radical politics that had formerly been castigated to the fringes of Scottish politics for embodying an implicit English nationalism that didn’t resonate with conservatively minded Scots.

&Elections Website - Holyrood

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In this forecast, the SNP are set to storm to victory with a majority government, but with under 30% of the regional list vote - yielding the most disproportionate result in an election to the Scottish Parliament ever. This disproportionality is set to be propelled Swinney’s party being projected to win marginal victories in all but eight of the First Past the Post-elected constituency seats thanks to their relative similtude in vote share across the country, albeit still with under 35% of these seats’ cumulative vote. Meanwhile, Labour are currently set to descend to fourth place despite their unprecedented gains on the SNP in the last general election, with the Greens, Labour, Lib Dems and the Conservatives all falling within a margin of less than 4pp with each other in the regional list vote. Reform, however, would very comfortably be leading the opposition - entirely replacing the Tories as the opposition on the right and difinitively trouncing Labour in comparison to &Elections’ projection for the Scottish Parliament at the end of the summer. At this point, Labour can only be grateful that the Lib Dems’ lackluster strategising means that Sarwar’s party remains the primary force of centre-left unionists, even if this is only marginally so.

&Elections Website - Holyrood

&Elections Website

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