If the break-up of the United Kingdom doesn’t bother you, read no further. But those of us who want the UK to stay together should prepare for a bitter battle between Westminster and Holyrood. This battle will not just decide the future of these islands; it could raise big questions about the way Scottish democracy works.
The election for a new Holyrood parliament takes place on 7th May, the same day as elections to the Welsh Senedd and councils across England. If a clear majority of MSPs support independence, the SNP will claim a mandate to demand a new referendum on independence. And they might succeed beyond their wildest dreams.
Two things have come together to make possible a wide divergence between the views of voters and the ambitions of those they elect. Both are caused by a voting system that was designed to prevent such divergence, but this time may encourage it.
Holyrood’s parliament has 129 members. Seventy-three are elected for local constituencies by first-past-the-post. The other 56 are chosen from lists in each of Scotland’s eight regions. This is a top-up process designed to ensure a roughly proportional outcome overall. Each elector has two votes—one for their local MSP, the other for a regional party list.
There are the two ways in which this May’s election could produce a perverse outcome. The first concerns the election of constituency MSPs. Labour’s success two years ago across Britain—winning almost two-thirds of MPs with barely one-third of the popular vote—could be matched, and even exceeded, by the SNP next month.
The latest Nortstat poll for the Sunday Times, which is fairly typical of all recent surveys, shows the SNP winning 34 per cent of the constituency vote. This is likely to give the party around 57 seats, leaving just 16 divided between Reform, Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. That’s first-past-the-post for you.
This would leave the SNP eight seats short of the 65 it needs for a majority in Holyrood. Would they get those missing seats from the 56 regional MSPs that will also be elected?
The short answer is no. The purpose of the regional list seats is to correct distortions in the constituency vote. Scots cast a second vote that decides how many of the 56 regional list seats (seven in each of eight regions) each party wins.
In 2021, the SNP won 40 per cent of the regional vote but only two seats. This was because it had already done so well in the constituency section, and the allocation of regional seats (done via the d'Hont formula) took account of this. The SNP ended up with 64 seats overall, just short of a majority. In broad terms, democracy worked: just over half of all Scots voted for a pro-independence party (SNP, the Greens, Alba). The SNP (64 MSPs) and the Greens (eight) together secured a modest pro-independence majority. (Alba won no seats and has since withdrawn from the fray.)
But this year could be very different. This is because the SNP is almost certain to win no regional seats at all. According to Norstat, just 30 per cent will cast their regional vote for the SNP, ten points down on five years ago. An average of all recent polls gives the same number. On that level of support—or anything like it—and given how many constituency seats the SNP are likely to win, they have no chance of winning any regional seats.
That means that every regional vote for the SNP will be a wasted vote. Every voter who wants to guarantee a majority for Scottish independence at Holyrood should cast their regional vote for the Greens, not the SNP.
SNP supporters who simply want to punish Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage (and who don’t care much, either, for their Scottish counterparts) should also vote Green in the regional section, in order to minimise the number of Labour, Tory and Reform MSPs in Holyrood. Anyone voting SNP in their regional list will hurt the Greens and help the cause of the unionists they dislike.
Yes, Scotland’s voting system is that absurd. However, there’s nothing new about voters switching to their second choice to achieve a larger objective. In the 2024 general election, tactical voting punished the Tories across Britain. The equivalent for pro-independence Scots in May can be regarded as strategic voting: using people power to ensure the greatest number of pro-independence MSPs in Holyrood. It’s not just that voting Green is a rational choice for SNP supporters in the regional section; it’s their only rational choice.
According to John Curtice’s estimates based on the Nortsat polling, and my own analysis, total support for unionist parties is 52 per cent, and for pro-independence parties 42 per cent. Yet on conventional assumptions, there would be an 11-seat majority for leaving the UK. This majority could widen substantially if SNP supporters cast their regional vote for the Greens. It would range from a pro-independence majority of 31 seats if half of them vote Green, to 49 if they all do.
Those figures are estimates. All polls are subject to margins of error. We cannot be certain that conventional assumptions will produce a pro-independence majority at Holyrood. Together, the SNP and Greens need to fall just six seats short of Curtice’s projections for the unionist parties to win a collective majority. This adds to the incentive for SNP supporters to give their regional vote to the Greens. They have the power to guarantee a majority for independence, and if enough of them make the strategic switch, they will ensure a landslide.
How should Westminster respond if there is a clear majority at Holyrood for a fresh referendum on independence, however it is achieved? One obvious retort is to look at votes, not just seats. As we have seen, and unlike five years ago, most Scots seem likely to reject the pro-independence parties.
However, Labour in particular should be wary of deploying that argument. It would undermine its claim to having a mandate to take big decisions about the UK. In the 2024 election, the party’s 34 per cent vote share gave it 63 per cent of the MPs elected. What’s sauce for the Westminster goose is sauce for the Holyrood gander.
While that argument heats up, one conclusion stands out. Scotland’s parliament has a voting system that, like the one for Westminster, is no longer fit for purpose. What should replace it? The case for a truly proportional system is not as clear-cut as its advocates claim. But if that is the aim, the way to avoid today’s perverse incentives is to adopt the new system that comes into force next month for electing the Welsh Senedd (single-member constituencies have been scrapped; six members will be elected from party lists in each of 16 regions).
That’s a debate for when Scotland’s votes have been counted and the skew in the results becomes clear. It’s bound to spill over into the arguments about how we elect MPs to the House of Commons.
A version of this article originally appeared on Peter Kellner’s newsletter
