Poll: Support for Nigel Farage's Reform UK stalls in Scotland

A Norstat survey shows backing for Nigel Farage’s party dropping slightly

The growing support for Reform UK in Scotland appears to have stalled, according to a new poll.

A Norstat survey for The Sunday Times shows backing for Nigel Farage’s party dropping slightly for the first time in nine polls.

It also suggests Scots are willing to embrace tactical voting to defeat Reform at the ballot box in May.

The poll shows the SNP with a substantial lead of 35 per cent on the Holyrood constituency vote, and 29 per cent on the more proportional regional list.

Scottish Labour has regained second place in terms of vote share, with 19 per cent on the constituency vote, up two points, and 17 per cent on the regional list, down one point.

Reform’s support on the latter fell by two points. On the constituency vote, 17 per cent said they planned to back Reform, down three.

Projections by Sir John Curtice, the polling expert, suggested the result would see the SNP secure 59 seats, six short of the overall majority John Swinney is targeting to push for a second independence referendum.

Reform would still emerge as the second biggest party, with 19 seats, due to how the Holyrood voting system works. Labour would win 18 seats, the Tories 14, the Greens ten and the Liberal Democrats nine.

The poll found 57 per cent of Labour voters would back the SNP if a constituency battle was a two-horse race between Reform and the Nationalists.

And 76 per cent of those planning to vote SNP would back Labour if a seat was a straight fight between Reform and Mr Sarwar’s party.

Prof Curtice said the SNP’s electoral prospects have been “transformed” by the rise of Reform.

“Nigel Farage’s party has fractured the unionist vote,” he wrote in The Sunday Times. “Reform currently enjoys the support of more than one in three of those who voted Conservative in 2021 and 15 per cent of those who backed Labour or the Liberal Democrats.

“Just 6 per cent of those who voted SNP five years ago have switched to Reform. As a result, the SNP enjoys a 16-point lead over its nearest rivals on the constituency vote, a lead that is likely to deliver the party the vast bulk of Holyrood’s 73 first-past-the-post seats.”

However, he said the evidence from the latest poll that the rise of Reform “has come to a halt” and the party is still in a close race with Labour for second place is “not necessarily good news for Swinney”, adding: “He cannot afford a Labour revival.”