SUPPORT for the Scottish National party has plummeted following criticism of Alex Salmond’s handling of the international financial crisis.

A YouGov poll for The Sunday Times reveals the SNP has lost its lead over Labour at Westminster as voters back Gordon Brown to lead Scotland out of the downturn. The results suggest the nationalists now face an uphill battle to win the Glenrothes seat from Labour in next month’s by-election.

Support for the nationalists has also dwindled at Holyrood, with the Scottish Conservatives picking up seats.

However backing for independence has remained steady, despite Brown’s claim that the Government’s £37 billion bailout of Scottish banks could not have happened in a separate Scotland.

Only one in four voters said they would be less likely to vote for independence as a result of the economic downturn.

In the constituency vote for the Scottish parliament the SNP is on 39%, down three points since the last YouGov poll in the first week of September, while Labour are on 31%, up five points. The Scottish Conservatives polled 14% of the vote (+1) with the Scottish Liberal Democrats on 12% (-3). In the regional vote the SNP is on 32% (-3), Labour on 29% (+4), the Tories on 16% (+2) and the Lib Dems on 11% (-3).

If replicated at an election the SNP would be the biggest party with 47 seats, the same number it won at the last election in 2007, with Labour on 43 (-3), the Tories on 19 (+2) and the Lib Dems on 13 (-3).

The survey found support for Labour at Westminster is up by six percentage points since the start of last month, on 38%, with the SNP nine points behind on 29% (-5%), the Conservatives on 20% (+3%) and the Liberal Democrats on 11% (-2%).

The survey appears to confirm the view that Salmond has misjudged the public mood by seeking to politicise the credit crisis with only 23% of voters trusting him most to lead Scotland through the current turmoil compared with 42% for Brown.

However, the first minister can take comfort that support for separatism remains relatively consistent. If an independence referendum was held tomorrow, 31% of voters said they would vote in favour of separatism while 53% said they would vote against. The remaining 16% were undecided or would not vote.

Only 28% of voters said the financial crisis, which prompted the bailout of HBOS and RBS by the UK government, would make them less likely to back independence.

Writing in today’s Sunday Times, Salmond defends his government’s handling of the crisis. “Seizing on the manifest and particular difficulties of Iceland, a country with a population half of that of Glasgow but with its own currency, tells us little about the ability of an independent Scotland to adapt to a global downturn,” he says. “And the IMF forecasts for the other Nordic nations demonstrate that small countries can thrive in even the toughest of times.”

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