For the attention of Boris Johnson : your cut-out-and-keep guide to the overwhelming evidence that Scotland will NOT vote in line with the rest of the UK in the EU referendum

I'm getting the slight impression that the outgoing Mayor of London may have read one too many of those endless "Scottish public opinion is basically the same as English public opinion" articles from his mate Fraser Nelson. I can't think of any other explanation for this utterly bizarre claim in his long-awaited Telegraph column last night -

"I also accept there is a risk that a vote to Leave the EU, as it currently stands, will cause fresh tensions in the union between England and Scotland. On the other hand, most of the evidence I have seen suggests that the Scots will vote on roughly the same lines as the English."

Luckily for all of us, the evidence on this subject is publicly available, and to state the bleedin' obvious, "most" of it does not suggest that Scotland is in line with English public opinion. In fact, absolutely all of it suggests the complete opposite.

SCOTLAND : AVERAGE OF LAST THREE ONLINE POLLS

Remain 53.7%
Leave 28.3%

BRITAIN-WIDE : AVERAGE OF LAST THREE ONLINE POLLS

Remain 40.0%
Leave 40.0%

Remain lead in Scotland is 25.4%

Remain lead across Britain is 0.0%

Remain lead in Scotland is 25.4% higher than in Britain as a whole

*  *  *

SCOTLAND : AVERAGE OF LAST THREE TELEPHONE/FACE-TO-FACE POLLS

Remain 57.0%
Leave 23.0%

BRITAIN-WIDE : AVERAGE OF LAST THREE TELEPHONE/FACE-TO-FACE POLLS

Remain 50.3%
Leave 36.7%

Remain lead in Scotland is 34.0%

Remain lead across Britain is 13.6%

Remain lead in Scotland is 20.4% higher than in Britain as a whole

*  *  *

Now, to be fair, full-scale EU referendum polls are conducted less frequently in Scotland than across Britain, so the above numbers aren't directly comparable - some of the Scottish fieldwork is quite a bit older, which might potentially give a distorted impression.  But that's where the Scottish subsamples of Britain-wide polls come in so handy...

Ipsos-Mori telephone poll (13th-16th February) :

Across Britain, the Remain lead was 18%

In Scotland, the Remain lead was 57%

Remain lead in Scotland was 39% higher than in Britain as a whole

*  *  *

TNS online poll (11th-15th February) :

Across Britain, the Leave lead was 3%

In Scotland, the Remain lead was 25%

Remain lead in Scotland was 28% higher than in Britain as a whole

*  *  *

ICM online poll (12th-14th February) :

Across Britain, the Remain lead was 4%

In Scotland, the Remain lead was 19%

Remain lead in Scotland was 15% higher than in Britain as a whole

*  *  *

ComRes telephone poll (11th-14th February) :

Across Britain, the Remain lead was 8%

In Scotland, the Remain lead was 28%

Remain lead in Scotland was 20% higher than in Britain as a whole

*  *  *

On and on it goes. Heaven only knows what "most of the evidence" is showing on Planet Boris, but back here in the real world it's pointing in one direction only. There are two realistic outcomes - either a) Britain will vote to Remain, and Scotland will vote to Remain by a much bigger margin, or b) Britain will vote to Leave, and Scotland will vote to Remain. We all know what the likely consequences of the latter would be.

* * *

Many thanks to the 577 people who voted in this blog's readers' poll yesterday. 87.7% of you want the UK to remain in the EU, while 12.3% of you want to leave. That's almost identical to the result of the previous poll a few months ago (although the Remain lead has grown very slightly).