Political turmoil promises unpredictable future

There is a blizzard of information about the state of party politics today. First, Labour loses a by-election in a seat it has barely been challenged in before – but not to Reform, which underperformed. Then Glasgow Green councillors and other leading activists defect to a party that doesn't even have a name yet.

There are two opinion polls suggesting that even through voting intentions in Scotland are fairly settled, the possible outcome from this is volatile because it is based on such a complicated set of conditions. Alba party appears to be sustaining a low-level civil war just at the point at which it is back in contention for taking some seats at Holyrood.

It is a more complicated and faster-moving picture of party politics in Scotland and the UK than anyone has seen in their lifetime. The disruption around the defection of leading figures to the SDP in the 1980s was a crisis in one party; today suggests there is barely a party in Britain not in at least some degree of crisis, possibly even Reform.

But while the picture is volatile, some themes are emerging. Labour is in an existential crisis, certainly as one of the dominant parties in a two-party system. It is in many ways remarkable that there has not been more public worry and dissent in the party than there is; Labour is in a much worse situation than at any time under Jeremy Corbyn and that generated daily commentary.

After today's Welsh by election result, this will surely change. Labour is not only fairly clearly on a path to oblivion, it shows no sense it has an idea of how to reverse this. Generally there isn't a lot that can be inferred from a Welsh by-election about the Conservatives but they are in a bigger crisis than Labour.

But this is not a good result for Reform. Polls had it in the lead during the campaign and there are growing signs that Reform may be hitting something of a ceiling in voting. In particular, while support for Reform has been the subject of much reporting, opposition to Reform has not and this is probably masking the extent to which it is vulnerable to tactical voting.

Will this rescue Labour? Some of its members are behaving as if that is what they are hoping, but hostility to Labour is such that in a lot of key seats it may not be obvious that Labour is the horse to back in tactical voting.

What this could look like in a future parliament is hard to envisage in the British system. It is supposed to produce a two-party result, but systematic tactical voting could lead to a two-block parliament, one made up of Reform and whatever is left of the Conservatives, the other a diverse mix of Labour, Lib Dems, Greens, Your Party, SNP, Plaid Cymru and SDLP. How this would work is anyone's guess.

In Scotland things are equally strange. There is really only one party which, by its own standards, ought to be happy with current polling, and its members are defecting... There is every reason for the SNP to think it ought to be making progress but the most recent polls have it resolutely stuck where it was when John Swinney took over, still averaging 35 on the constituency.

But this is coming at a price and the latest poll has the SNP at only 21 per cent on the list. It suggests many voters see the SNP as the best choice tactically but without anything that could be mistaken for enthusiasm.

This raises questions about voter motivation and turnout – it is low turnout of core vote which has been harming the SNP in recent by-elections. Labour is down to what is basically a core vote in Scotland, but is it more motivated? That has been the recent pattern.

The big winners in this appear to be the Greens, but it is a strange sort of win. There does appear to be a spill-over effect from the profile and performance of the leader of the English Greens, which is of course a different party. Will voters come to learn that given time? Will they care? Certainly things do not appear particularly happy in the party given it is facing defections at this precise moment.

And if it is the case that at least some of the Green vote will be a negative vote which is unhappy with the most small-c conservative offer of Labour and the SNP, the defections to Your Party may be a harbinger of trouble ahead for the party. Yet it is entirely unclear what state this party may be in by the time of the Holyrood election.

Meanwhile things look comparatively good for the Lib Dems in Scotland and if Labour is weak, they may benefit from tactical anti-SNP voting. But this is all a scramble on the list and with Reform at an unprecedented 19 per cent in Scotland, what tactical voting will look like here is hard to guess.

It makes competition for regional seats on the list brutal. Alba has reached a voting threshold which would almost certainly have given it seats in recent Scottish elections, but it might not be enough this time round, and the party does not seem to be any more settled or happy with itself than any of the others – and possibly worse.

Added together, this is a really complicated picture which makes for an incredibly difficult task for those minded to predict the future. The stakes have never been so high – or so uncertain.