6MAY

More in Common puts SNP short of majority

3 min read

17:39UTC

More in Common's Holyrood MRP, published Friday 24 April, projects the SNP on 56 seats with Reform UK on 22, diverging by 11 seats from the YouGov and Electoral Calculus models that both put the SNP at 67 and over the line.

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Key takeaway

Three Holyrood models put the SNP between 56 and 67 seats; the mandate sits inside that 11-seat range.

More in Common published its 2026 Holyrood MRP on Friday 24 April ¹. The model projects the SNP on 56 seats, Reform UK on 22, Scottish Labour on 17, the Lib Dems on 14, the Conservatives on 12, and the Scottish Greens on 8. An SNP-Green coalition on the More in Common numbers reaches 64, one short of the 65-seat majority threshold.

The projection diverges sharply from the two existing Holyrood models. YouGov has the SNP on 67 seats with a majority in 89% of simulations . Electoral Calculus also projects 67 . The 11-seat gap between the highest and lowest projection covers the genuine uncertainty in the Scottish vote. PollCheck's five-poll moving average for Holyrood at 23 April puts the SNP on 33.4%, consistent with both projections depending on geographic distribution.

Whether John Swinney has a mandate for a 2028 independence referendum depends on which model the actual vote tracks closest to. He says majority equals mandate. In the More in Common model, that mandate does not exist. Reform UK lands second in all three Scottish models, displacing Labour or the Conservatives from official opposition. The Scottish Conservatives, projected at zero constituency seats by Electoral Calculus , would lose official opposition status either way.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Scotland's Parliament (Holyrood) has 129 seats. To have an outright majority, a party needs 65. John Swinney (the SNP leader) said in his manifesto that he would call a new independence referendum in 2028, but only if the SNP wins a majority. Three different forecasting models have projected different SNP totals for the 7 May election: Electoral Calculus said 67, YouGov said 67, and More in Common said 56. The first two give the SNP a majority and trigger the referendum condition. The third does not. The difference comes down to how the models estimate what happens in rural and semi-rural Scottish constituencies where Conservative voters are switching to Reform. If they go to Reform, the SNP might benefit (because the anti-SNP vote is split). If they stay with what's left of the Conservatives or back a different alternative, the SNP's local dominance weakens. A 56-seat outcome would mean Swinney needs support from other parties to govern, removing the independence referendum trigger regardless of his manifesto commitment.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

The SNP's constituency-seat dominance , projected to hold all 73 constituencies by YouGov , depends on a collapse in Conservative support to Reform before a Conservative-to-SNP tactical vote can firm up. If enough former Conservative voters move to Reform rather than staying to back SNP incumbents over Reform challengers, the SNP loses seats not to Labour or the Greens but to a Reform protest vote that inadvertently hands constituencies to other parties.

More in Common's lower 56-seat projection reflects a modelling assumption that Reform's regional list surge in Scotland translates into a partial constituency presence in rural seats, consistent with the pattern More in Common detected in England at the 2024 general election. Electoral Calculus and YouGov treat the constituency-level Reform threat in Scotland as minimal, based on 2024 Westminster data showing Reform did not contest most Scottish constituencies.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: In the 2016 Holyrood election, the SNP fell from 69 seats in 2011 to 63, losing its majority, because a surge in Conservative support under Ruth Davidson took five constituency seats from SNP incumbents.

The 2016 election is the structural template for More in Common's model: Conservative collapse to Reform in 2026 could reprise the same dynamic in the same constituencies, with Reform performing the role Davidson's Tories played. Both Electoral Calculus and More in Common are effectively modelling different versions of whether Reform can replicate Davidson's 2016 constituency breakthrough.

Counter-parallel: The 2021 Holyrood election, in which the SNP reached 64 seats (one short of majority), was successfully called by multiple MRP models within one or two seats. The 11-seat gap between models in 2026 is significantly larger than any pre-election MRP divergence in 2021, suggesting the 2026 result has higher genuine forecast uncertainty.

Consensus view: The Electoral Calculus team at Martin Baxter has noted that the YouGov and More in Common models diverge primarily on their treatment of constituency-level swing in rural and semi-rural SNP seats, particularly in Aberdeenshire and the Scottish Borders, where Reform UK's regional list vote is projected to pull Conservative voters away from constituency SNP challengers.

YouGov's model treats this as a net gain for the SNP; More in Common's assigns a higher portion of those votes to a direct Reform challenge.

Counter-view: Reform Scotland argues that More in Common's 56-seat projection, if realised, is a better outcome for the independence movement than a bare majority: a Swinney minority government dependent on Green confidence-and-supply would face fewer of the parliamentary arithmetic problems that plagued the Bute House Agreement, and could pursue independence as a medium-term political project without the liability of being held responsible for every government failure as a majority administration.

Key tension: Whether the 56 versus 67 divergence is a methodological difference in how rural Tory-to-Reform switching is modelled, or reflects a genuine late-campaign softening of SNP support that has not yet appeared in individual polls.

Sources:More in Common

Mentions:More in Common →Scottish National Party (SNP) →John Swinney →Scottish Greens →Electoral Calculus →Bute House Agreement →Holyrood →Parliament →Prima →Scottish Conservatives →PollCheck →Scottish Labour →Reform UK →YouGov →Green Party →

First Reported In

Update #5 · 11 Days to Go: Six-of-six, RPA dies, Welsh lead flips

More in Common· 26 Apr 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Second MRP confirms SNP majority path

The YouGov Holyrood MRP projecting SNP majority in 89% of simulations (2313) is directly challenged by the More in Common model projecting SNP at 56 seats.

Occurred 11 Apr 2026

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Electoral Calculus projects first SNP majority since 2011

The Electoral Calculus SNP 67-seat projection (2101) is contrasted with More in Common's 56, establishing the 11-seat uncertainty range.

Occurred 7 Apr 2026

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This Event

More in Common puts SNP short of majority

The 11-seat gap between models covers whether John Swinney can claim a 65-seat mandate for a 2028 independence referendum; in the lowest projection, that mandate does not exist.

Led to

SNP at 62, three short of 65

More in Common's Holyrood MRP at 56 was the lower bound of the three-model spread that resolved to YouGov final 62

Occurred 5 May 2026

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SNP wins 58, below 65-seat trigger

More in Common projection of SNP on 56 seats formed the lower bound bracketing the 58-seat actual result

Occurred 6 May 2026

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Reform enters Holyrood on 17 MSPs

More in Common's projection of Reform second on 22 Holyrood seats foreshadowed the 17-seat actual tying with Scottish Labour

Occurred 6 May 2026

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Different Perspectives

Green Party

Zack Polanski's campaign delivered the Hackney and Lewisham mayoralties and both councils, plus 543 English council seats, establishing the first Green governing base in outer London. The 153-seat MRP undershoot was attributed to FPTP tactical dynamics in marginal wards rather than a polling error in vote share.

UK Labour Government

Keir Starmer's government faces the immediate test of whether to intervene in Lancashire's withdrawal from the UK refugee resettlement scheme and the longer question of how to respond if the SNP tables a Section 30 vote. MHCLG's posture on Reform-controlled councils sets the template for the next four years of divided local government.

Scottish National Party (SNP)

John Swinney committed to a Section 30 vote on the first Holyrood sitting day post-appointment and a draft referendum bill within 100 days, reframing the 58-seat result as a working mandate despite missing his own 65-seat trigger. Westminster's pre-stated refusal of a Section 30 order means the constitutional confrontation is now a matter of timing.

Plaid Cymru

Rhun ap Iorwerth confirmed on 8 May that Plaid would attempt to govern Wales as a minority, ruling out immediate coalition talks and naming budget priorities as the test of cross-party support. The 43-seat result leaves Plaid six seats short of the 49-seat majority threshold.

Reform UK

Nigel Farage claimed 7 May as a historic breakthrough, pointing to 1,448 new councillors and 14 councils won from a near-zero base. The internal reckoning is that transition teams built for 22 councils must now govern 14, and three of those 14 produced immediate governance disputes.

Wales Governance Centre

The Centre framed Wales's mid-campaign Green-to-Plaid consolidation as 'consolidation, not conversion' in April, meaning voters did not migrate ideologically but regrouped tactically inside the same bloc because closed-list PR made it arithmetically rational. The final MRP result confirms that framing.