Scottish Independence Referendum: One Year To Go

Scottish Independence Referendum: One Year To Go

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In the past few days, to coincide with today being exactly one year away from the Scottish Independence referendum, there’s been a plethora of polling on the topic.

ICM for the Scotland on Sunday.

This was an online poll, which gave Yes 32%, No 49%, Don’t Knows 19%.

Panelbase for The Sunday Times

Yes 37 (nc) No 47 (+1), Don’t Know 16 (-1).

The changes are from the last Panelbase poll for the Sunday Times in July.

However if we compare the changes to the Panelbase for the SNP in August, the changes are Yes minus 7, No plus 4, Don’t Know plus 3, which confirms to me as Professor John Curtice and others noted, that asking supplementaries before the Voting Intention and Referendum question, can distort the result of the referendum question.

YouGov for The Times

This poll found Yes, 32% (+3), No 52% (-7),  Don’t Know 16% (+4)

The changes are from the YouGov poll for Devoplus in August, which featured the pejorative and lengthy preamble to the referendum question, this poll asked the question that will be on referendum ballot paper next year with a neutral preamble.

Ipsos-Mori for STV.

This was a phone poll for STV, which asked the question as will be on the ballot paper next year.

Yes 31% (nc), No 59% (nc), Don’t Know 10% (nc)

The changes are from Ipsos-Mori’s last poll from May 2013.

Other polls.

As part of their monthly phone poll, they asked their Great Britain wide panel, their views on Scottish Independence, whilst the non BPC registered Progressive Scottish Opinion published a poll on the topic.

Conclusion

With exactly a year to go, Unionists will be delighted, with all the latest polls showing the No side leading, and generally older votes (the voters, who in the past, have a higher likelihood to vote in elections and plebiscites), Ipsos-Mori found  the 55-plus bracket both expect they will vote No by 61% to 30%, YouGov found 28 per cent of the over-60s saying they will vote “Yes” while 61 per cent in this age group say they will vote “No”.

For supporters on Scottish Independence and those of us betting on Scotland leaving the Union next year, the current polling doesn’t look promising, however there are grounds for optimism, out of these polls and the August polls, only YouGov and Mori are showing support for the Union above 50%.

Panelbase found, It means that among those expressing a preference, support for a No vote is at 56%, with the Yes campaign trailing on 44%.

However, when the 16% of Scots still undecided are asked how they would vote if the referendum was today the No lead falls to just four points with the gap narrowing to 52:48.

The ICM poll found when this poll is re-percentaged to exclude the Don’t Knows,  the No side would score a victory of 60 per cent to 40 per cent in the referendum….However, that lead shrinks from 55 per cent to 45 per cent when people are asked to assume that a No vote would result in no extra powers for the Scottish Parliament.

So, as the referendum gets closer, we could see minds being focussed, especially when the campaign proper starts, as we’re currently in a relative phoney war stage, especially when the campaign will see a lot of Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, who have positive net ratings, in contrast to the politicians at Westminster.

The final ground for optimism is Alex Salmond who I regard as the most accomplished politicians and campaigners in the country. A campaign that features him heavily, will do well.

Add in if it looks like there’s going to be no further devolution, if Scotland votes no, which could intern lead to a surge of support for the Yes to Independence side.

The best price on Scotland voting yes is 9/2.

TSE

 

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