Polls show that if people throughout Britain could vote for the Scottish National party, it would win at least 9% support, one point above the Lib Dems

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The Scottish National party would get more votes than the Liberal Democrats if they fielded candidates across Britain, according to new opinion polls.

Voters were asked by pollsters at Survation to imagine that the SNP and Plaid Cymru were standing in all constituencies in Great Britain including their own, and the results gave the SNP 9% of the vote, which would put them one point above the Lib Dems.

Labour would be on 32%, the Conservatives on 30%, Ukip on 15% and the Greens on 4%, according to the poll provided to the Guardian on Friday.

In Survation’s most recent regular poll, published earlier this week, Labour were on 35%, the Tories on 31%, Ukip on 15% and the Lib Dems on 9%.

The SNP figures echo a similar survey carried out in recent days by YouGov. It puts Nicola Sturgeon’s party running in all constituencies in Britain on 11% of the vote, ahead of the Lib Dems, and Ukip on 13%.

In YouGov’s figures the Lib Dems would drop to 7%, with the other 15% of Clegg’s 2010 share of votes opting for Sturgeon’s party instead. Support for Labour would fall to below 30%, with one in 10 of the party’s 2010 voters preferring the SNP (slightly more than the hypothetical 7% of Labour to SNP switchers in the Survation figures).

To put all this into context: in the 2010 election, the SNP won less than half a million votes compared with the Lib Dems’ 6.8m.

Although this is obviously a theoretical exercise, it further highlights the growing appeal of the SNP south of the border following the televised leaders’ debate last week, which attracted more than 7m viewers across the UK.



One of the most searched questions on Google during that debate was “can I vote for the SNP if I live in England?”



Polling on the night saw Sturgeon top a Great Britain-wide poll that had asked who won the debate, and on average she was virtually tied with David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nigel Farage across all the evening’s polls.



Survation polls since the debate have seen Sturgeon claim the highest approval rating among all of Britain’s party leaders.

Image: Survation

What isn’t hypothetical is the SNP’s support in Scotland

A poll on Thursday saw the SNP rise to an all-time high of 49% in Westminster voting intention.

Image: YouGov

If these numbers were repeated on election day they would mean Labour’s worst result in Scotland since 1918. The SNP would come just short of Labour’s best ever Scottish result, which was 49.9% in 1966.

According to the Guardian’s latest projection of polls, Sturgeon’s party is on course to win 53 of Scotland’s 59 seats – a gain of 47 on 2010.

SNP surge SNP surge

Scotland’s once in a generation shift and ideological drift has taken place over several years, and it is now deeply rooted in the country’s political landscape.

The SNP surge is real – and it is here to stay.

Consider this: nearly six in 10 of those who watched the first of Scotland’s two leaders’ debates this week thought Sturgeon won:

Sam Coates Times (@SamCoatesTimes) YouGov / Times: Of those who watched / followed Tuesday's debate, who won: 56% Sturgeon 14% Davidson 13% Murphy 1% Rennie

Despite Sturgeon’s soaring popularity, the SNP would most probably not win a presidential election in Britain.

There is not a great chance of such a presidential vote taking place any time soon. But putting this to one side, when asked by Survation who they would vote for in a “French-style presidential election”, 27% of UK voters said Cameron, 18% Miliband, 11% Farage, 9% Sturgeon, while only 6% would vote for Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg.

Survation methodology: sample size: 1,111 GB adults aged 18+, interviewed online. Fieldwork dates: 8-9 April 2015