Thursday, September 9, 2021

Breakthrough: Sky News poll is first since the spring to show an outright pro-independence majority

Opinium / Sky News poll:

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 51% (+1)
No 49% (-1)

I can't help but raise a wry smile at Sky News reporting their own poll as "Scotland remains evenly split" - that's technically accurate because a 1% increase could very well just be margin of error noise, but I don't seem to recall that being the interpretation when No moved into a slight lead early this year.

It's important to stress that until today there had only been four polls on independence since the Holyrood election.  One of those was a dead heat and the other two showed reasonably narrow No leads.  It may be that if there had been a larger number of polls over the last few months, we'd have seen the occasional Yes lead as a natural result of clustering around the 50/50 mark.  So today's poll isn't necessarily evidence of a swing back to Yes - but the good news is that it may be evidence that things have been better than they've looked all along.  I suspect we may have been led astray by ComRes polls in particular, which seem to have displayed a No-friendly house effect in recent months (which is ironic, because at the turn of the year ComRes looked like a Yes-friendly firm).  If you strip out ComRes from the list of this year's polls, there's very little sign of No opening up a substantial lead at any point - it's remained pretty tight for the most part.

You'd need to have a heart of stone not to laugh at Scotland in Union's unfortunate timing.  It was only this morning that they published a propaganda poll purporting to show that Scots don't want to "leave the United Kingdom" and are opposed to a second indyref.  Within just hours, a bona fide poll commissioned by a mainstream media outlet has shown a pro-indy majority, and a plurality (albeit a narrow one) in favour of holding an independence referendum within the next five years.

I suspect the unionist parties will be reeling with disbelief at the party political voting intention numbers, which suggest that the SNP's "honeymoon" is still ongoing after fourteen-and-a-half years, and arguably point to a whole new honeymoon that started after the May election.

Scottish voting intentions for the next UK general election:

SNP 51% (+4)
Conservatives 21% (-4)
Labour 17% (-3)
Liberal Democrats 5% (-1)

Seats projection (with changes since 2019 election in brackets): SNP 57 (+9), Conservatives 1 (-5), Labour 1 (-), Liberal Democrats 0 (-4)

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot voting intentions:

SNP 51%
Conservatives 21%
Labour 18%
Liberal Democrats 6%

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot voting intentions:

SNP 40%
Conservatives 21%
Labour 16%
Greens 8%
Liberal Democrats 5%
Alba 0%

Seats projection (with changes from 2021 election in brackets): SNP 65 (+1), Conservatives 28 (-3), Labour 21 (-1), Greens 10 (+2), Liberal Democrats 5 (+1)

Although Alba have been rounded down to zero on this occasion (as far as I can recall the first time that's happened in any poll), I know party members will be relieved they were at least offered to respondents as an option - which strangely wasn't the case in the most recent Panelbase poll.  Two respondents did say they'd vote Alba, but the result perhaps isn't so surprising when you bear in mind how starved the party has been of media attention recently.

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Scot Goes Popcast: You can watch the full videos of my recent interviews with Yvonne Ridley and William Duguid HERE and HERE


  1. Let us all take a moment to sympathise with the quislings in SIU, who have seen their big story gazumped.

  2. Good news. Now is time to come out fighting for independence. Scotland's politicians must not be allowed to suffocate the independence movement any more.

  3. I think that’s because the vaccine bump is well and truly over and the UK government is showing itself to be as incompetent as ever.

    Narrow majority support for independence is becoming the long trend baseline.

    I honestly think it won’t be too long before most Scots say, not only yes to independence, but also, why on Earth didn’t we do it sooner!

  4. Any poll showing a majority for Scottish independence is to be welcomed.

    The numpties on WGD are frothing at the mouth about this so much you would think Scotland will be independent this weekend.

    TWO THINGS the numpties ignore.

    1. All those polls at 58% yes which they claimed was all down to the great leader Sturgeon. So is the 7% drop all down to the great leader as well. Of course not, numpties just ignore such inconvenient matters.

    2. The SNP 11 point plan for independence. Well the plan was launched more than 6 months ago and the WGD numpties obviously cannot remember back more than 6 months so that's to be expected. Can any numpty tell us where we are on this plan that nobody mentions now and that includes the great leader and Russell. Is the plan now defunct? Does anyone even care now? This plan was and is just more carrots to keep the donkeys happy. A total nonsense of a plan that they knew numpties would see as a "sign" Indyref2 is coming. Numpties just love their "signs". I don't remember reading the bit in the plan where John(Redactor Man) Swinney would prepare a Financial Prospectus but hey it's another "sign" according to the numpties.

    2023 is now the YEAR the numpties cling on to for the holy grail of Indyref2. It used to be 2021. It used to be 2020. It used to be 2019. It used to be 2018. This is now embarrassing. It's like a religious cult claiming the second coming. In days gone by bad weather and meteors streaking across the sky were seen as a "sign". The numpties ain't progressed much.


  6. Any news on the recent YouGov poll conducted on the matter of Scottish independence? Or will it take a while for the results of that poll to be released?

    1. That's the first I've heard of it. Bear in mind that some political polls are intended for publication and others aren't, so we'll just have to wait and see if it ever appears.

  7. James, Great to see some indy polls again. Might be coincidence but the slight shift to YES could be down to YES groups being more visible on the streets again.
    The Believe in Scotland-inspired day of action on the 18th might be the launch pad for a further rise.
    A wee worry I have anent the Indyref is the Brits could propose a 3rd option on the ballot.
    I would be totally against. They've had 8 years to deliver on Gordon Brown's last minute vow.
    The question that bothers me is would the SG swallow it?

  8. You say the Alba party has been starved of media attention. But with the best will in the world, I looked at their own website news section and he last news is from June.

    I'd thought they existed to help provide an alternative Yes perspective, working on policies for, say, a slightly different take on Europe, a definite currency plan, etc etc. But I don't see it. Am I missing something?

    1. Yes, you are missing something - any Alba member will tell you there's been constant activity. Updates every week, office bearer elections, the first annual conference is taking place at the weekend. Essentially the party is being built, brick by brick.

    2. OK, but that is all internal party business, not news.
      Will be interested to see their views on EU, currency, NATO and UN.

    3. With all due respect, that's what the conference is for. It's literally taking place tomorrow.

    4. Yes exactly, that's why I will be interested to see their views on EU, currency, NATO and UN.

  9. I think your point about the desire for a referendum is very important. If it comes to a court case, the ruling will be that both the UK and Scottish governments have a mandate - one to hold a vote and one to block one. It's therefore more of a political question than a legal one, and since the people of Scotland don't actually want a referendum then it's reasonable for the UK Government not to agree to its facilitation, and certainly will be under no obligation to recognise the result.

    People who think that's going to change the game are, I think, somewhat naïve. It seems like we're a long, long way from even the potential for overwhelming support for indy, and even those on the Yes side haven't been geared up for further action such as civil disobedience. Even if a vote is held and ignored, what makes anyone think we won't be treated exactly like the still Spanish Catalonia? We would have taken a route NOT in line with British constitutional rules, so nobody's going to come running to save us.

    1. "and since the people of Scotland don't actually want a referendum"

      Sigh. You're commenting on a blogpost about a poll that shows the people of Scotland *do* want a referendum.

  10. James

    Not stressed by Alba showing no matter the glee from some SNP members. Alba only really gets going this weekend and I have been impressed with the speed in which the party has been moving. It will be a long road to make the impact needed but I suspect it will come sooner than people think, I also suspect, only based on friends who have left the SNP to join Alba that the numbers are just not breaking through yet but I am no expert.