ALBA - Unofficial Forum

When Reform UK took the lead in a recent YouGov poll, I pointed out the oddity that in doing so, they hadn't quite matched their all-time high vote share with YouGov.  Or at least not technically, because Reform are a legal continuation of the Brexit Party, which hit 26% in YouGov polls during a brief purple patch in mid-2019.  However, in the new YouGov poll published a couple of days ago, Reform have now equalled that previous record, while maintaining their one-point lead over Labour, and increasing their advantage over the Tories to five points.

As ever, the standard point that Scottish subsamples from YouGov are of more interest than those from other firms, because they appear to be correctly structured and weighted (albeit they still have a very large margin of error due to the small sample size).

This week's other GB-wide poll from More In Common shows a superficially similar picture, with Reform gaining a point to tie with Labour for the lead.  However, they're simply returning to the same vote share (25%) they've been on in two previous More In Common polls since the start of the year, so there's not necessarily any evidence of an ongoing bandwagon.

There's been increasing chatter recently about either a merger between Reform and the Tories, or an electoral pact between the two parties.  The instinctive reaction of many to that prospect is "oh my God, that would put the right-wing coalition in an unassailable position".  In practice it wouldn't be quite as simple as that, because Reform are currently attracting a lot of "economically left, socially right" voters - and as soon as those voters feel they'd be "voting Tory" by backing Farage, a lot of them would return to the Labour fold (and in Scotland there would even be some returning from Reform to the SNP).  

Nevertheless, it's fair to assume a Reform-Tory merger would leave Labour with a substantial deficit in the polls.  My guess is that if a deal does happen, it'll be years from now, because Farage will want the Tories to get used to being firmly in third place so he can negotiate from a position of strength.

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As you may have seen, I've updated this blog's masthead, which now states that Scot Goes Pop is one of the three most-read Scottish political blogs.  That's based on the latest estimates for January 2025 from Stuart Campbell's favourite comparison site, which shows that Scot Goes Pop has overtaken Robin McAlpine.  As I've previously rehearsed, there are very good reasons for not trusting these estimates, but as Campbell's fan club treats them as absolute gospel, I may as well take advantage of them when they're favourable.  The only Scottish political blogs with a bigger readership than Scot Goes Pop are now Wings and Wee Ginger Dug - unless you count Craig Murray, but he hasn't posted about Scottish politics since October, so for the time being at least (things may change) it's fair to say that his blog is no longer a Scottish politics blog.  I know some unkind souls would say the same is true of Wings, which by his own definition would now be better titled "Gender Stuff Over Somerset", but he does still post about Scottish politics occasionally, and I gather he comes from Bathgate originally, so we'll stretch the point for now.

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I launched the Scot Goes Pop fundraiser for 2025 a couple of weeks ago, and so far the running total stands at £1281, meaning that 19% of the target of £6800 has been raised.  If you'd like to help Scot Goes Pop continue with poll analysis and truly independent political commentary for another year, donations are welcome HERE.  Direct Paypal donations can also be made - my Paypal email address is:   jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk