December 2023 Holyrood Election Predictions

By LightningMinion, Scotland Correspondent

The polls before the election predicted that the nationalist SNP, led by the incumbent First Minister /u/model-avtron would win a majority of votes, with the polls placing the party at 55 points. This is significant, largely for 2 reasons. Firstly, it would deliver a rare single-party majority. Secondly, it would mean most MSPs would be nationalists.

3 years ago, the Scottish Conservatives were in a similar position: the pre-election polls predicted that the party would win a majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament, with the party polling at around 55 points. In the end, the Scottish Conservatives ended up winning roughly 45 points on the regional lists, which was a victory for the party but a 10 point drop compared to the polling before the election. Will the SNP suffer the same fate, or will they win an unprecedented majority?

The Independent’s analysis suggests that the former will happen, thanks to the party’s performance in the debate and in the national campaign being weaker than expected. Our analysis suggests that Forward and Scottish Labour will benefit most from the SNP’s underperformance. However, the SNP is still set to be the largest party and I expect it to gain seats compared to the last election in August.

In August, Scottish Labour suffered defeat under the leadership of /u/LightningMinion as the SNP pushed it into 2nd place. The party was tied with the Scottish Conservatives in terms of seats, and only very slightly ahead in votes. In August, Scottish Labour party insiders feared that the Scottish Conservatives would end up overtaking the party in the polls, with the Scottish Conservatives potentially being the biggest rival to the SNP in the elections in December. Luckily for Scottish Labour, this scenario never took place. /u/BlueEarlGrey resigned as their leader and was succeeded by /u/Sephronar, who was later succeeded by /u/Underwater_Tara. /u/Underwater_Tara later resigned, and it is believed that no one was appointed as her successor, effectively leaving the party’s leadership vacant. The party unsurprisingly didn’t contest the December elections.

While Scottish Labour’s polling was in free-fall earlier this year, party leader /u/LightningMinion was able to successfully reverse the party’s fortunes and cement it as the largest rival to the SNP. The Independent’s analysis suggests that the party performed better than expected in the debate and the national campaign, and that it should look forward to a good result.

Forward was founded by former Scottish Labour politician /u/Frost_Walker2017 earlier this year, and is now co-led by /u/model-willem and /u/PoliticoBailey. The pre-election polls suggested that half of their MSPs should say goodbye to their jobs this winter, but our analysis suggests that the party has cut its losses by running a good national campaign, and having a good performance in the debate.

This election also featured 2 small parties/independents: former First Minister /u/Muffin5136 leading the nationalist Independence Now! party, and the Lord Kearton /u/Maroiogog running as an independent candidate. For 2 small groups with low polling, our analysis suggests that they will perform respectably in the election.

Figure 1: a table showing the Independent’s analysis of the election, including a prediction of the election result.

Figure 2: a graph showing the predicted probability distribution of the number of seats each party is expected to win. It has been assumed that the probability distributions are normal.

The analysis suggests that unionist MSPs will retain their majority in the Scottish Parliament. It also suggests that Scottish Labour could overtake the SNP, though I do not believe that to be likely. The incumbent government of an SNP minority propped up with confidence and supply from Forward is predicted to increase its majority. If Scottish Labour wished to form a government, then their most likely option is with Forward. However, as this coalition is predicted to have a slim 1-seat majority, they may need the votes of /u/Maroiogog if this coalition performs worse than expected in the election. Scottish Labour could also form a coalition with a large majority with the SNP, though this may not be as likely as this wouldn’t give Scottish Labour the post of First Minister, and the leaderships of both parties may consider that the large majority this government would have would be too large as the number of MSPs in opposition would be to low to effectively scrutinise the government.

I should, however, note that this is just a prediction, and predictions are often wrong. This prediction relies on assumptions which may be wrong. And this prediction can be thought of as an mhoc exit poll, and mhoc exit polls are often off. It is likely that this prediction is off, but I expect the actual election result to largely lie inside the distribution of seats given in Figure 2.