Leaked Labour poll predicts an election disaster
LABOUR is facing the prospect of finishing behind the Conservatives again in May’s local elections – according to its own polling.
Leaked internal polls suggest that the party is 10 percentage points behind the Conservatives – and 30 points behind the SNP.
If it suffers another heavy defeat, Labour could lose control of most of the councils it currently runs.
Another electoral humiliation could pile pressure on leader Kezia Dugdale, who has struggled to stop the party’s decline.
It would also further establish the Tories as the main opposition to the SNP, after the party’s surprisingly emphatic second-place finish in this year’s Holyrood election.
The Conservatives are confident that opposing another independence referendum amid local and national tax rises can help it win several councils.
According to the leaked Labour data, around one-quarter of its support has transferred to the Tories since 2015.
One Labour MSP said the party had calculated that it would achieve 15 per cent of the vote at the local elections in May, with the Tories securing 25 per cent and the SNP attracting 45 per cent.
Labour is also facing the prospect of losing control of Glasgow City Council for the first time in nearly four decades – after the SNP won all the constituency seats in the city in the Scottish election.
The leaked Labour poll follows election expert Professor John Curtice’s predictions that the party will come third behind the Tories in the 2017 council elections. Labour controls – or is the lead coalition partner – in 16 Scots councils, with the SNP holding an outright majority in only two.
It is understood Labour funding will be ploughed into winning councils where pro-Union coalition deals could be struck.
Labour MSPs were briefed on the damning polling report, compiled in October, at a meeting in Holyrood ahead of their Christmas party on December 21.
One source present at the meeting is reported to have said: ‘Of those who voted Labour in the last General Election, around half won’t do so again, with most going to the Tories.
‘The polling for the local government elections has us at only 15 per cent.’
Scottish Conservative chief whip John Lamont said: ‘Labour didn’t need internal polling to realise what has been obvious for months now, that Scots are tired of its flipflopping on independence.
‘When it can’t be trusted to stand up for the Union it’s hard to trust Labour on anything else – so it’s no wonder it’s so unpopular.’
Susan Aitken, co-chairman of the SNP’s council election campaign, said: ‘It’s becoming clear that even Labour has realised it has nothing left to offer the people of Glasgow after taking their loyalty for granted for generations.
‘The big political contest across Scotland next year won’t be between the SNP and Labour. It will be between us and the Tories.’
A spokesman for Scottish Labour said: ‘Next May, all that will stand between local communities and further SNP cuts will be Labour councillors.
‘The SNP have taken Tory austerity and plans to pass on cuts worth £327million to our valued public services, such as education and care for the elderly.’
‘It has nothing left to offer’