"C'est trop bruyant!": The settled will klaxon is so piercing tonight that it can even be heard IN FRANCE, as Norstat show a pro-independence majority for a SEVENTH poll in a row

Tonight brings word of the latest in the regular series of Norstat polls for the Sunday Times, and although the newspaper has buried the results of the independence question at the bottom of the write-up as if it's of no great significance, it certainly looks pretty significant to me.  If I'm counting correctly, this is now the seventh Norstat poll in a row to show a Yes lead - and remember Norstat were one of the more No-friendly firms until a couple of years ago.  To this day (as far as we know, anyway), they continue to weight by 2014 recalled vote, which is a huge disadvantage for the Yes side, who are nevertheless repeatedly coming out on top.

Should Scotland be an independent country? (Norstat / Suday Times, 30th March - 1st April 2026)

Yes 52% (+1)

No 48% (-1)

The Sunday Times are far more interested in the Holyrood voting intention numbers, which are a bit of a curate's egg for the SNP.  Their own vote share has held up perfectly well, but a decline for Reform UK means that the unionist vote is no longer split as perfectly as it was, opening up the possibility that Labour and the Tories may take a few more constituency seats than previously expected and push the prospect of a single-party SNP overall majority further away.

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:

SNP 34% (-1)

Labour 19% (+2)

Reform UK 15% (-4)

Conservatives 11% (+1)

Liberal Democrats 10% (+2)

Greens 8% (-)

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:

SNP 30% (-)

Labour 17% (-)

Reform UK 15% (-4)

Greens 12% (+1)

Conservatives 10% (-1)

Liberal Democrats 10% (+3)

Seats projection: SNP 57, Labour 20, Reform UK 16, Greens 13, Conservatives 12, Liberal Democrats 11

That would obviously be a very comfortable pro-independence majority (70 for the SNP and Greens in combination, 59 for the unionist parties), but it would leave the SNP well short of their self-imposed target of a single-party majority.  However, even if Reform's setback is indirectly bad news for the independence cause, I nevertheless find it strangely reassuring.  Every time Paul Hutcheon has written an over-the-top headline about "Reform's campaign in total meltdown", I've thought to myself "it won't make the slightest bit of difference you know, nothing sticks to them", so it's a bit of a relief to discover (or provisionally discover) that the laws of political gravity do actually apply to Offord and Reform after all, and that if they run a shockingly bad campaign it does have negative consequences for them, just as it would for any other party.

There's still a month for them to put their house in order, and all they'd really have to do is work their way back to where they were fairly recently in order to help the SNP back into the 60s in the seats projection.  Even if Reform don't recover, there's another very plausible get-out-of-jail-free card for the SNP, which is that the Greens plainly can't take 8% of the constituency vote when they're not standing in the vast majority of constituency seats.  What would happen if, say, the SNP were to take half of their votes and Labour were to take one-quarter?  The seats projection from this poll would then be: SNP 60, Labour 18, Reform UK 17, Greens 12, Conservatives 12, Liberal Democrats 10.

Still not a majority, but a bit closer to one, and it might be a slightly more realistic estimate of where the SNP stand right now.

John Curtice also makes the point in the Sunday Times piece that if the public become aware that Reform's support is falling away, that could encourage greater anti-SNP tactical voting for Labour and the Tories.  There may be some logic to that, although there may also be a side-benefit for the pro-indy camp, because Reform are currently taking a non-trivial percentage of independence voters and we need as many of those people as possible back on the side of light if we're going to end up with a decent vote share on the list - which in practice may be just as psychologically important as the seats tally.

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My latest constituency profile for The National is Falkirk West.

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