Stirring Survation survey suggests virtual dead heat on independence

We now almost have a full house of pollsters producing pre-anniversary polls on independence - of the six firms which traditionally poll on the subject now and again, only ICM haven't put in an appearance so far this month.

Should Scotland be an independent country? (Survation)

Yes 49.3% (+1.1)
No 50.7% (-1.1)

Although it's obviously encouraging that two of the three online firms that have reported over the last few days have shown a modest increase in the Yes vote, these numbers remain firmly within the familiar post-referendum range - Yes have previously been as high as 51% in a Survation poll.  So there's still no evidence of a surge for Yes over and above the one that took place in the immediate aftermath of last September's events.  The good news is that the initial surge was absolutely real and hasn't been reversed.  We know that because the Yes vote is significantly higher than 44.7% in this poll, in spite of the fact that Survation weight their results by recalled referendum vote.  Respondents who recall voting Yes have been weighted down from 413 to 385, and those who recall voting No have been sharply weighted up from 423 to 458.  Without that adjustment, Yes would be in the outright lead.

Even better are the clear signs that the progress for Yes since the referendum has come about - at least in part - because of direct switching by people who voted No.  John Curtice made a great deal the other day of the Panelbase poll showing that exactly the same proportion of Yes and No voters from last year would stick with their original choice, and that Yes had only made modest progress because it was in the lead among people who didn't vote in the referendum.  But that was actually an extremely unusual finding, and is contradicted by both YouGov and Survation.  In the Survation poll, 6.8% of No voters from 2014 would now vote Yes, compared with just 2.6% of Yes voters who would now vote No.

There's great news in this poll for those urging Nicola Sturgeon not to be scared of making a conditional commitment for a second independence referendum in the SNP's Holyrood manifesto.  A mere 4.1% of people currently planning to vote SNP say they would be less likely to vote for the party if another referendum is promised.  Even if you make the improbable assumption that every single one of those people would peel away, that would still leave the SNP with 51% of the vote on the constituency ballot.  (And in reality any minor losses could well be offset - 8.5% of prospective Labour voters say a referendum promise would make them more likely to vote SNP.)

Unfortunately, the poll was conducted just before Jeremy Corbyn was elected as Labour leader, so it can only offer hypothetical data on the potential Corbyn effect.  Among people who voted SNP this year, 14.3% say Corbyn would make them more likely to vote Labour, compared with 18.3% who say that they'd be less likely to do so.  That may sound encouraging from a nationalist point of view, but of course many of the people who claim they'd be less likely to vote Labour are probably hardcore SNP voters anyway.  What is more significant is that 16.9% of people who actually voted Labour in May say that Corbyn might put them off from sticking with the party next year.  In absolute terms, there are more SNP-voting respondents (58) who might be won over by Corbyn than there are Labour voters (33) who might be repelled, but that difference isn't great enough to make much of a dent in the SNP lead.  Having said that, we don't know exactly where the potential Labour defectors might go - in theory they might all go to other unionist parties.

A quick word about the YouGov poll, for which the datasets have now been released.  In spite of the fact that it was commissioned by a nakedly partisan client and thus contains leading questions, there is one absolutely devastating finding for the anti-independence camp.  Just 9% of respondents think that the notorious "Vow" which helped to win the referendum for No has been delivered in full.  A combined total of 52% say that only very little has been delivered, or nothing at all.

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ALL-TIME HIGH FOR YES IN SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS

There have now been enough recent polls to make it worthwhile updating this blog's Poll of Polls on independence for the first time in a full year, using the same method as before (although for obvious reasons only firms that have reported since the referendum are included - that means Opinium drops out of the sample).  Of the six polls taken into account, only the one from ICM is somewhat out of date, but given the strong indications that public opinion has been stable over the last few months, that may not make much difference.

Percentage changes are from the last update on September 17th last year, and almost certainly underestimate the progress made by Yes since then.  That's because four of the six firms have since introduced weighting by recalled referendum vote, which generally hurts Yes.

MEAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :

Yes 49.6% (+1.5)
No 50.4% (-1.5)

MEAN AVERAGE (not excluding Don't Knows) :

Yes 46.0% (+2.4)
No 46.7% (-0.4)

MEDIAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :

Yes 48.7% (+0.9)
No 51.3% (-0.9)

(The Poll of Polls is based on a rolling average of the most recent poll from each of the firms that have polled on independence since the referendum, and that adhere to British Polling Council rules. At present, there are six - YouGov, TNS, Survation, Panelbase, Ipsos-Mori and ICM. Whenever a new poll is published, it replaces the last poll from the same company in the sample.)