Sir John Curtice on why the Labour lead over the SNP is disappearing

Labour are still on course to win a massive majority on July 4, despite the fact they have had “not a brilliant” campaign.

Those are the words of polling guru Professor Sir John Curtice, who says Sir Keir Starmer should have had a more decisive victory against Rishi Sunak in the last televised head-to-head leaders’ debate given how far ahead he is in the polls.

YouGov published a poll immediately after the televised debate on BBC One on Wednesday night. The poll put Mr Sunak and Sir Keir both on 50 per cent.

When asked how much they have in common with the two leaders, the public gave Sir Keir 56 per cent and Mr Sunak 44 per cent.

Prof Curtice told the BBC: “This is rather more a success for Sunak than for Starmer. Labour is 20 points ahead of the Conservatives in the opinion polls, and YouGov data suggests only half of 2019 Conservative voters say they will vote Conservative again.

“Sunak must hope his performance will stop the erosion of the polls - there are signs the decline of the party has come to a halt, albeit at a low figure of 20 per cent.”

There are other headaches for Labour as well, not least the narrowing gap between the SNP and Scottish Labour north of the border, and the rise in popularity of the Lib Dems in England and Wales.

An exclusive poll by Savanta for The Scotsman revealed the SNP and Scottish Labour are now back to being neck-and-neck on 34 per cent each.

However, because of the concentration of Labour support in the more populous Central Belt, this would equate to 28 seats for Labour and only 18 for the SNP.

Prof Curtice said: “There’s certainly a wide variation in the polls for the SNP. Some are putting them well into the 20s and others are saying it will be less than that.

“The Labour lead over the SNP is disappearing, but that can be explained by the variations expected in the polls. But the broad message is there is not a great deal of movement.”

He said the Conservatives would still see a “serious defeat” at next week’s election, with most polls predicting the Conservatives to be on around 100 seats and Labour to be on up to 450 seats.

Prof Curtice added: “There are signs the Lib Dems are squeezing Labour votes in some places where the Lib Dems are the better challengers to the Conservatives. But it has not been a brilliant campaign for Labour, as well as the Conservatives having their obvious difficulties.

“To be honest the chances of the Conservatives winning the election are very, very low indeed.”

The polling expert did, however, warn that polls suggesting a “substantial” Labour majority with “heavy losses” for the Conservatives risked exaggerating the extent to which Conservative support was falling. One reason for Conservative support falling is the re-emergence of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in the election contest.

This event saw Reform UK’s vote share increase from 11 per cent to 17 per cent, although they are polling at less than 8 per cent in Scotland.