EXCLUSIVE SCOT GOES POP / FIND OUT NOW POLL: SNP and Greens on course to win nearly TWO-THIRDS of Holyrood seats and a pro-independence SUPERMAJORITY - SNP overall majority still a possibility - Labour slump to dismal FIFTH place in the seats projection

A little earlier tonight, I revealed the Scottish Parliament voting intention results from the new Scot Goes Pop / Find Out Now poll in a video on my YouTube channel, but as promised, here are the results in text form...

Scot Goes Pop / Find Out Now poll, 15th-20th April 2026

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:

SNP 35% (+1)

Reform UK 16% (+1)

Labour 14% (-4)

Greens 12% (+3)

Liberal Democrats 10% (-)

Conservatives 9% (-)

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:

SNP 27% (-2)

Greens 20% (+6)

Reform UK 17% (+1)

Labour 12% (-5)

Liberal Democrats 11% (+1)

Conservatives 10% (-)

Seats projection:

SNP 59

Greens 23

Reform UK 17

Liberal Democrats 11

Labour 10

Conservatives 9

Just a reminder that the sample size was 1002, and the percentage changes are measured from Find Out Now's recent MRP poll commissioned by The National.

As stated in the video, I can't find a higher Green list vote share in any poll from any polling firm over the last few years, so it's certainly a high watermark in recent times and may be an all-time high, but I'm not sure on the latter point.  To address a question that I know will be raised, Professor John Curtice cast doubt on Find Out Now's list results a few months ago, because he felt the wording of their list question might be artificially boosting support for smaller pro-independence parties.  They took that feedback on board and replaced the question with a new wording that immediately reduced support for the smaller parties.  

When I saw such a surprisingly high Green vote in this poll, I did doublecheck to make sure Find Out Now were still using the new version of the question, and indeed they were, so to the best of my knowledge there's no particular reason to be sceptical about the results - apart of course from the fact that any poll can potentially be an outlier, and some might argue that the Green list result in this poll has 'outlier' written all over it because it isn't in line with trends shown by most other polling firms recently.  But keep an open mind until we see the next batch of polls: there's always just a chance that this is the early evidence of a new trend.

All polling firms have house effects, but trends are often more consistent across the polling industry, and I must say it's very hard to square these results with the propaganda message we've been hearing from Labour about their vote firming up on the doorsteps.  Similarly the Tories claim to be faring surprisingly well - but if so, shouldn't there at least be some sign of that in this poll?!

In case you're wondering about the quirk of Labour only being in fifth place in the seats projection when they're in third place on the constituency ballot and fourth place on the list, the main explanation for that is the likelihood that the Lib Dems will win more constituency seats than Labour.

It's really important to remember that the seats projection is taking the constituency vote shares seriously, and is thus likely to be underestimating the SNP, who I reckon would be on 63 seats - and thus only just short of an overall majority - if you make a common sense adjustment to reassign a slim majority of Green constituency voters to the SNP in the seats where the Greens are not standing.  But it's fair to say the main story of this poll is about the prospect of a two-party pro-independence supermajority of the type that Alex Salmond suggested in 2021 might break the logjam (albeit of course that supermajority, if it happens, will not consist of the parties he had in mind).  It's also about the prospect of pro-independence parties filling the roles of both the government and the main opposition party - which is similarly an outcome that it has been suggested in the past might be a staging-post towards independence.

There's still more to come from this poll in the days to come, but in the meantime please check out the new Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser - if you have a few pounds to spare it would be very much appreciated, and might inch us closer to being able to run another poll at some point in the future.

EXCLUSIVE SCOT GOES POP / FIND OUT NOW POLL: Join me at 11.50pm on YouTube to hear the release of the Scottish Parliament voting intention numbers

If you join the waiting zone, the video above should automatically start playing at 11.50pm.  Just like last night, I'll be posting the poll results on this blog in text form later on for the video-phobic.

In the meantime, please check out the new Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser, and if you feel able to chip in a few pounds, that would be very much appreciated.

It's GO! The Scottish Parliament voting intention numbers from the new Scot Goes Pop poll will be released TONIGHT

 

While you're waiting for the thrills and spills of later tonight, please check out the new Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser HERE.

EXCLUSIVE SCOT GOES POP / FIND OUT NOW POLL: A significant majority of voters in Scotland would vote Yes to independence in a new referendum held now

As promised for the video-phobic amongst you (although do watch the video version if you're not video-phobic!), here are the independence results in text form from the new Scot Goes Pop poll I commissioned last week.  The polling firm that conducted the poll was Find Out Now, who are a member of the British Polling Council and abide by that organisation's rules.  They're also a member of the Market Research Society.  The sample consists of 1002 respondents who were interviewed between 15th and 20th April, in other words between Wednesday of last week and yesterday.  

Scot Goes Pop / Find Out Now poll

If another Scottish independence referendum was held tomorrow, with the question 'Should Scotland be an independent country?', how would you vote?

Yes 53% (-) 

No 47% (-)

Those numbers, which exclude Don't Knows, are unchanged from the most recent comparable Find Out Now poll, which was commissioned by The National in February.  However, on the figures which leave Don't Knows in, there is a small increase in the Yes lead:

Yes 50% (-)

No 44% (-1)

Undecided 6% (+1)

The results have been weighted by age, gender, region and recalled 2024 general election vote - but not, crucially, by 2014 referendum recalled vote, which after this length of time carries with it the risk of false recall.  (Find Out Now's methodology is absolutely consistent regardless of client, let me stress - these results would have been exactly the same if the poll had been commissioned by the Daily Express.)

In my view, what is most significant about these results is that they are bang up to date and are taken from fieldwork right in the middle of an election campaign, because we know from past experience that independence support sometimes dips during elections, even when the SNP's own vote holds up.  That's probably because unionist parties devote so much of their campaigning to attacks on the subject without the SNP necessarily responding in kind.  But on the evidence of this poll, it's not a problem on this occasion.

Across the whole polling industry, there have now been fifteen independence polls in 2026 so far.  Nine of them have shown a Yes lead, only four have shown a No lead, and the remaining two were dead heats.  No fewer than *six* different polling firms have shown a pro-independence majority at some point this year: Find Out Now, Ipsos, Savanta, Stonehaven, Norstat and More In Common (although I must admit I hadn't previously been aware of the Savanta poll until I checked the list just now - I'll have to look into it).

There is no gender gap in the Find Out Now poll other than the fact that women are slightly more likely to be undecided: they break 49% to 43% for Yes, while among men the Yes lead is 51% to 45%.  As ever, there is an enormous gulf between the youngest and oldest respondents, although in this case the best age bracket for Yes is thirtysomethings.  30-39 year olds break 68% to 27% for Yes.  The best age group for No is 65-74 year olds, who break 69% to 26% for No.  The youngest age group to be pro-No is 55-64 year olds.  

Among people who voted for unionist parties in the 2024 UK general election, there is considerable minority support for independence (except among Tory voters who are almost monolithically No).  26% of Labour voters, 21% of Liberal Democrat voters, and 20% of Reform UK voters would back Yes in a new referendum.  In a way that's a bad thing, though, because we want all independence supporters to be voting for pro-independence parties - we don't want then cross-voting for unionist parties.

The settled will klaxon is sounding tonight, and I can tell you that KC has already heard it loud and clear.  There's plenty more to come from this poll, including the Holyrood numbers, which as I said in the video contain a really quite stunning result in one particular respect - and the more I've checked it and compared it to previous polls, the more extraordinary it looks.  

So keep an eye out for more results over the coming days, and in the meantime please check out the new Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser - if you have a few pounds to spare it would be very much appreciated.

Be the first to discover the INDEPENDENCE RESULTS from the exclusive new Scot Goes Pop opinion poll: join me at 9pm on YouTube for the release

As far as I know, if you join the waiting zone, the video above should automatically start playing at 9pm, although you may have to endure a two-minute countdown clock.  If nothing appears after a minute or two, try refreshing.

For those of you who are totally video-phobic, don't worry: I'll also post the results in text form on the blog, but later in the evening.

In the meantime, please check out the new Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser, and if you feel able to chip in a few pounds, that would be very much appreciated.

This is not a drill: the independence results from the new Scot Goes Pop poll will be released TONIGHT

 

I'll post the link to the video revealing the results once I've scheduled it.  (I'm trying to build up some suspense and anticipation here, but doubtless that's a forlorn hope.) 

Don't forget the new Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser I've set up, if you'd like to chip in with a few pounds - it can be found HERE.

My latest constituency profile for The National is Midlothian North.

A heads-up: a new Scot Goes Pop-commissioned opinion poll will be published before election day

So a small announcement - I have commissioned Scot Goes Pop's first opinion poll since the two that were done back-to-back during the SNP leadership election in early 2023.  For cost reasons, it's not going to be the sort of all-singing, all-dancing poll I used to commission back in the day with eight, nine or ten questions - it'll be a bit smaller-scale than that, but I've chosen the questions for maximum impact and I don't think you'll be disappointed by them.

The reason I stopped commissioning polls was because the fundraising efforts ran out of steam, and I had to start concentrating more on general fundraising for the blog if I was going to stay afloat at all.  However, it's been three years since the last poll, and it'll potentially be another three years until the next major election takes place in Scotland, so I don't think there's much doubt that if I'm going to do another one at any point, now is the moment to do it.  It'll be a few days at least before the results are ready, but I thought I'd make an advance announcement to help with the publicising of my new polling fundraiser, which I hope will not only assist with the costs of the current poll, but if we're really lucky potentially also build up a small war-chest for a future poll at a moment of maximum impact.

Here is the pitch I've written for the fundraiser on the GoFundMe page - 

Hi there, my name is James Kelly, and I write the pro-independence Scot Goes Pop blog, which spends much of its time covering opinion polls.

Polls can shape much of the narrative of any election campaign, and that leaves us with a problem in Scotland because most polls are commissioned by unionist media clients. The media don't, of course, decide the results of those polls, but they do decide which issues are and aren't worth asking about, and also what emphasis each result should be given at the time of publication. It's become increasingly frequent over the last couple of years, for example, for the results on the standard Yes/No question about Scottish independence to be totally buried in the reporting - and doubtless it's just an astounding coincidence that this has happened at precisely the moment that Yes has moved into a clear lead in the polling average.

Between 2020 and 2023, I was fortunate enough to be able to offer a corrective to this problem on my website Scot Goes Pop. Roughly every four months during that period, I was able to commission a poll from a variety of reputable polling firms affiliated to the British Polling Council, and to ask the questions that we in the independence movement wanted asked, not the ones that unionist journalists and politicians wanted asked. It wasn't easy, because polls are very expensive, but I was able to do it with your help.

Some of those polls were genuine landmarks. Remember that extraordinary period between mid-2020 and early 2021 when every single independence poll showed a Yes majority? The very first poll in that unbroken sequence was a Panelbase poll commissioned by Scot Goes Pop in June 2020. A few months later, another Scot Goes Pop-commissioned poll showed the largest Yes lead in any Panelbase poll ever. Supplementary results from the polls showed, among other things, that voters want Scotland to join the international treaty banning nuclear weapons, and think it would be appropriate to use a scheduled election to seek a mandate for independence if the option of a referendum is closed off.

I haven't commissioned a poll for three years because the fundraising efforts ran out of steam. However, if there was ever going to be a moment to have a new poll, that moment is right now - we're in the middle of a crucial election campaign, and there potentially won't be another major election for three years. I've therefore taken the bull by the horns and commissioned a new poll.

I'd like to ask for your help, not only in funding this new poll, but potentially raising enough to run another poll in the future at a moment of maximum impact. So if you have £10 or £20 to spare, this could be a really good-value-for-money, high-impact way of positively influencing the political narrative in Scotland. Many thanks in advance to anyone who chooses to contribute.

Click here if you'd like to donate.

If you don't want to donate by card on the fundraiser page, there are two other options available.  Direct PayPal donations can be made to my PayPal email account, which is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

If you want to distinguish the donation from the general fundraising for Scot Goes Pop, just add a note saying "for the poll" or whatever.

Bank transfers are the other possibility.  If you'd like to do that, contact me for the details at my contact email address, which is:  icehouse.250@gmail.com

You now have less than 30 hours to ensure all the independence supporters in your life are registered to vote

In a sense the title says it all, but it perhaps doesn't quite capture the scale of the problem, because data from 2023 suggests 20% of the adult population of Scotland are either not registered to vote at all or are not registered at their current address.  Presumably people in the latter category might theoretically be able to vote in some cases but would be much less likely to.  So if you can persuade the independence supporters in your life to get registered by the deadline of 11.59 tomorrow night (the 20th), that really is half the battle.  Pay particular attention to 16 and 17 year olds, because the 2023 figures suggest *40%* of them were unregistered.

Remember that, as long as people are resident in Scotland, there are very few obstacles to be eligible to vote in a Scottish Parliament or local council election.  It's no longer necessary to be a citizen of a Commonwealth country - that rule was changed a few years ago, so Americans, Chinese people, etc, etc can all register to vote by tomorrow night as long as they are resident here.  The main group that is still partly excluded is prisoners, but several categories of prisoner can apparently vote - remand prisoners, civil prisoners, convicted but unsentenced criminals, prisoners sentenced for non-payment of a fine, prisoners sentenced for contempt of court, and convicted prisoners serving a term of less than 12 months.

The registration process is apparently fairly quick, although don't leave it until the absolute last minute.  The online form can be found HERE.

List seat BONANZA forecast by MRP poll as JL Partners suggest the SNP are on course for an overall majority with the help of TEN LIST SEATS

I feel like I should say something about the new JL Partners / Telegraph MRP poll for the Holyrood election, but I'm actually struggling to find much information about it.  JL Partners' own website only seems to have data for the parallel polls on the English local elections and the Welsh Senedd, and even the Telegraph's write-up doesn't reveal the full seat tallies or vote shares.  The National have once again published the full constituency-level results in an interactive feature, but I'm unable to use it at the moment.

However, what is clear is that this poll is an extreme oddity because it purports to show the one outcome that most of us have ruled out as a realistic possibility.  It may cause the controversial Somerset-based blogger known as "Stew" to have something of an emotional moment, because it shows that the SNP would win an overall majority but only due to a substantial contribution of list seats.  They would take only 57 constituency seats, but their TEN list seats - that's TEN - would drag them up to 67 in total.  It's hard to see how that can be the case unless JL Partners have found one of two things: either a) a massive recovery on the SNP list vote share, or b) a very weird split on the list vote among the SNP's opponents.

One thing I am able to see on The National's website is the map of constituency results, and it's obvious JL Partners are showing a radically different pattern from the MRP polls of Find Out Now or YouGov.  They have Labour winning eight constituencies in the central belt (but weirdly Dumbarton is not one of them).  They have Reform UK winning three seats: Dumfriesshire, Aberdeenshire West and one in the central belt that is hard to discern from the map but to me looks suspiciously like Strathkelvin & Bearsden.  If I'm right about that, it's a completely bonkers projection that should call into question the credibility of the whole poll.  I see on Twitter that someone is also pointing out that the Green vote in Dumfriesshire exceeds Reform's lead over the SNP - and there is no Green candidate in Dumfriesshire!

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My latest constituency profiles for The National are Inverclyde and Inverness & Nairn.

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If you are enjoying Scot Goes Pop's election coverage so much that you start to feel an inexplicable urge to buy me a hot chocolate or a ham-and-cheese toastie, donations are very welcome.  There are three main options: 
a) you can donate by card HERE 
b) you can make a direct PayPal donation to my PayPal email address, which is: jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk
c) you can make a donation by bank transfer - for the necessary details, please drop me a line at my contact email address, which is: icehouse.250@gmail.com

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Over the last few months, I've been building up the Scot Goes Pop channel on YouTube - you can check it out HERE, and don't forget to subscribe.

The question that Anas Sarwar now needs to answer

The Scottish Labour party and its allies, including Paul Hutcheon of the Daily Record and Professor James Mitchell (who is increasingly dropping the pretence of being anything other than a Labour propagandist), have today been doubling down on the idea - which I don't think anyone in their heart of hearts truly believes - that Malcolm Offord's claim that Anas Sarwar approached him about a post-election deal is an outright lie.  That is very hard to square with an article in the Scotsman from only two weeks ago in which a Labour source was saying that Sarwar wanted to form a government from second place with the help of Reform MSPs.

If Sarwar wants his denial to have any credibility, particularly his pious suggestion that it is somehow unimaginable that a decent man like himself would have anything to do with a monster like Offord, it will surely now be necessary for him to explicitly rule out forming a minority government with the votes of Reform MSPs.  It's no longer good enough for him to say, as he and others have done in the past, that he cannot control how Reform MSPs vote in the election for First Minister, and that it is fine for him to simply accept the result of that vote.  He must definitively rule out serving as First Minister on that basis, because irrespective of whether there is a Labour-Reform deal written down on paper, a Labour minority government arithmetically dependent on Reform votes to sustain itself will be a Labour government beholden to the politics of Reform.

The distinction between the Labour spin machine and the Daily Record seems to have broken down again. Funny how that always seems to happen at this stage of the electoral cycle. https://t.co/e6cS1IVOl1

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) April 15, 2026

Professor Mitchell is getting beyond parody. What matters is whether Offord's claim is *true*. It can be as "appalling" or "illogical" as you like, but if it's "true*, the issue here is Sarwar, not the SNP or anyone else. https://t.co/M7pV0nUneQ

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) April 15, 2026

Reading between the lines here, what Professor Mitchell is saying is that it was totally fine for Sarwar to informally approach a far-right party for a deal, and the only problem is that others broke the "rules" by letting the public in on his secret. Just not cricket, old boy! https://t.co/apjOS2hhQX

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) April 15, 2026

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My latest constituency profile for The National is Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse.

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If you are enjoying Scot Goes Pop's election coverage so much that you start to feel an inexplicable urge to buy me a hot chocolate or a ham-and-cheese toastie, donations are very welcome.  There are three main options: 
a) you can donate by card HERE 
b) you can make a direct PayPal donation to my PayPal email address, which is: jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk
c) you can make a donation by bank transfer - for the necessary details, please drop me a line at my contact email address, which is: icehouse.250@gmail.com

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Over the last few months, I've been building up the Scot Goes Pop channel on YouTube - you can check it out HERE, and don't forget to subscribe.