RICHARD Leonard’s faltering leadership of Scottish Labour was dealt a serious blow yesterday when an extensive new poll suggested his party would be all but wiped out at a next General Election.
A YouGov poll of more than 40,000 people across the UK predicted five of Labour’s seven Scottish MPs would lose their seats to the SNP.
Overall, the survey, carried out for the Times, claimed Theresa May would win a working majority if a General Election were held today, though only just.
The poll said Labour would lose 12 seats overall, while the Tories, the LibDems, and the SNP would all gain four a piece.
That would take the Tories to 321 seats, just enough for a working majority.
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The poll is unusual, in that YouGov, who spoke to 40,119 voters between February 2 and 7, combined the results with the demographics of individual constituencies.
The process, known as “multilevel regression and post-stratification”, was used by the firm ahead of the 2017 election, where it became the first to claim that the UK was on course for a hung parliament. It correctly predicted the outcome in 93% of constituencies.
The survey says it’s likely Ged Killen, in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, Paul Sweeney in Glasgow North East (pictured), Lesley Laird in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, Danielle Rowley in Midlothian, and Hugh Gaffney in Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill would lose their seats.
The poll also predicts that SNP MP Pete Wishart may lose his seat, with voters handing his Perth and North Perthshire constituency to the Tories.
Jeremy Corbyn has long called for a General Election as a way of breaking the Brexit impasse.
READ MORE: Labour could still back Brexit People's Vote, says Corbyn
He repeated the call during a visit to Glasgow earlier this month. “People are suffering under austerity as a direct result of Tory cuts in Westminster passed down by the SNP in Holyrood,” he said. “The people who are bearing the brunt of nine years of austerity cannot wait years for a General Election. They need a General Election now.”
Many Tory MPs are fearful about going to the country while deeply divided on Brexit, and with a leader who was rejected by a third of her Parliamentary party just two months ago.
The poll also doesn’t reflect how much of a difference a campaign would make. May’s catastrophically botched effort in 2017 saw her lose a significant lead in the polls.
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SNP depute leader Keith Brown said the poll showed Labour could not stop the Tories in Scotland.
He said: “People across Scotland will look at the possibility of yet another Tory Government with absolute horror.
“That’s down to Jeremy Corbyn’s capitulation over Brexit, with Labour offering only token opposition to Theresa May’s catastrophic approach. No wonder so many Labour supporters are deeply disappointed. The only way to guarantee that Scotland stops getting Tory Governments we didn’t vote for is through independence.”
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