ANAS Sarwar’s call for Keir Starmer to stand down as Prime Minister has “made things worse” for Scottish Labour ahead of the Holyrood elections, top pollster John Curtice has said.
A Norstat poll for the Sunday Times found that 52% of voters thought Sarwar’s intervention was the right thing to do, while 26% thought it was the wrong thing to do.
However, despite the move appearing to land well with the public, the survey of 1000 Scottish voters, conducted the day after Sarwar made his failed gambit, showed that it made little to no difference to voters’ support for Scottish Labour.
Almost six in 10 voters said it would make no difference to the likelihood that they would vote Labour on May 7 2026. Only 15% said it had made them more likely to back the party.
Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie claimed the poll showed Sarwar “was right to be honest with Scots and they have responded positively to that”.
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However, Curtice had a different assessment and said it may have “even made things worse”.
“Crucially, for the first time, slightly more (33%) of those who voted Labour in 2024 now believe Sarwar is doing a bad job as Labour’s Scottish leader than feel he is doing a good one (30%),
“Sarwar’s attempt on Monday to escape seemingly inevitable defeat in May has, it seems, left him, if anything, in an even weaker position to turn things around.”
The poll found that only 17% of voters are set to back Scottish Labour with their constituency vote and regional ballot in the Holyrood election. They are trailing behind the SNP by a double-digit margin.
Curtice’s seat projections put the SNP on course to return 60 out of 129 seats, five short of a majority that John Swinney has said would trigger a second independence referendum.
Reform would return 22 MSPs, Scottish Labour 16, the Tories, 13, the Greens 10 and the LibDems eight.
This would equate to a pro-independence majority in Holyrood, which other polls have suggested is likely to occur.
The SNP is on 35% in the constituency vote and 30% on the regional list. At the last Holyrood elections, under Nicola Sturgeon, the party won 48% of the constituency vote and 40% on the regional list.
In Scotland, the Prime Minister has a -47 approval rating and just 15% of voters believe he is doing a good job.
While 41% believe Starmer should resign immediately following weeks of turmoil in the wake of the Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein scandal, 26% believe he should remain in post for now but resign if things fail to improve. Only 19% backed Starmer to remain in Number 10 until the next general election.
Even if Starmer did leave office in the coming weeks, it does not appear as if it would have any impact on Scottish Labour’s fortunes, with 61% stating that his resignation would make no difference to how likely they were to back the party.
The poll also found that only 15% of Scots approve of the UK Government’s performance since the 2024 General Election, while 58% disapprove of it.
With regards to the Scottish Government, 42% of respondents said it had done a bad job since the last Holyrood election, while 27% approve of its performance.
