Anas Sarwar would become first minister and lead Labour to power if a Scottish election was held tomorrow, a landmark poll has found.
The party threatens to end the SNP’s grip on Scottish politics by running almost neck and neck with the nationalists at the general election.
It is also on course to be the largest party by a single seat at Holyrood in a mirror image of how the SNP first came to power, according to analysis of a Panelbase poll for The Sunday Times.
The poll will provide a huge boost to Labour as it kicks off its party conference in Liverpool today, where Michael Shanks, the victorious Rutherglen candidate, will be paraded on the main stage alongside Sarwar and Sir Keir Starmer.
The poll — which was conducted as Labour humbled the SNP in last week’s Rutherglen & Hamilton West by-election — suggested that the growing unpopularity of Humza Yousaf, the first minister, means voters are swinging to Scottish Labour, with one in six independence supporters now backing Sarwar’s party.
Sir John Curtice, the polling expert and professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said: “The decline in SNP support not only threatens its dominance of Scotland’s representation at Westminster, it could eventually undermine its control of Holyrood.”
There is a crumb of comfort for the SNP in the poll, which shows the party adding three points to its June rating to win the support of 37% of the public. Labour fell by a point to 33%, the Conservatives remained on 18%, the Liberal Democrats went up one point to 8% and other parties attracted 4%, down three points.
Nevertheless, Curtice’s analysis found that this would still see Labour take 22 MPs in an astonishing surge from their current bedrock of two that would dramatically boost Starmer’s chances of becoming prime minister.
The SNP would remain the largest Scottish party at Westminster, with 26 MP. The Tories would retain their six seats and the Lib Dems would win five constituencies.
The next Holyrood election will take place in May 2026 but Sarwar will be buoyed by the direction of travel in the poll. It saw the SNP slip a point to 35% in the constituency vote, while Labour remained on 32%. The Conservatives would go up three points to 16%, the Lib Dems would fall two points to 9%, the Greens would remain on 7% and others would pick up 3%.
On the more proportional regional list vote, Labour went up two points to 30%, overtaking the SNP, who fell by a point to 29%. The Tories went up one point to 18%, while the Greens and Lib Dems remained on 12% and 8% respectively. Alex Salmond’s Alba Party remained on 3%, which was not enough for them to claim a seat.