Support for independence shoots back up in crucial YouGov poll

Tonight brings word of YouGov's first full-scale Scottish poll since Theresa May called the snap general election, and it provides tremendous reassurance on the independence question.  After two consecutive YouGov polls that have had the Yes camp below the 45% achieved in the 2014 referendum, something approaching normal service has been resumed.

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 45% (+2)
No 55% (-2)

As ever, it's worth bearing in mind that YouGov probably haven't interviewed 16 and 17 year olds, so even assuming their methodology is otherwise sound, the 45% for Yes could conceivably be a slight underestimate.

We've now had five different polling firms report on independence in April, and four of them have shown some sort of movement towards Yes (although it was only a trivial 0.1% swing in the case of Survation).  The increase is so small in each poll that the pattern may just be coincidence, but the important thing is that there is absolutely no corroboration for the Kantar/TNS findings suggesting there has been a dramatic drop in the Yes vote.  That poll sticks out like a sore thumb to an even greater extent now.

With depressing predictability, a heavy dose of spin is being applied to the YouGov poll tonight by unionist propagandists in the mainstream media - a graphic has been put out with the title "Losing Ground".  It's quite true that the No side appears to be losing ground, but I suspect that's not what they meant.  I'm sure it makes some kind of weird sense in their own heads.

Admittedly, there is less good news on Westminster voting intentions, where the SNP have slipped to an unusually low 41%.  However, the Tories have failed to make the type of breakthrough suggested by Panelbase recently, leaving Nicola Sturgeon's party still holding a commanding lead.

Westminster voting intention (YouGov) :

SNP 41%
Conservatives 28%
Labour 18%
Liberal Democrats 7%
Greens 3%
UKIP 2%

That's quite an odd set of numbers, because other polls have implied that the SNP are basically losing support direct to the Tories, but YouGov seem to be suggesting that some of the support has gone elsewhere.  If you'd told me in advance that the SNP were going to be as low as 41%, I would have expected the Tories to be in the thirties.  At the end of the day, the lead of the first-placed party over the second-placed party is the most important thing in any first-past-the-post election, so we can draw considerable comfort from the 13% gap - and also from the 3% support for the Greens, some of which may find its way to the SNP by polling day (partly for tactical reasons, and partly because the Greens won't be standing in all constituencies).

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SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 46.0% (+0.3)
No 54.0% (-0.3)

(The Poll of Polls on independence is based on a rolling average of the most recent poll from each firm that has reported at least once within the last three months. The firms included in the current sample are Panelbase, BMG, Ipsos-Mori, YouGov, Kantar/TNS and Survation.)

Westminster voting intentions :

SNP 42.8% (-0.8)
Conservatives 29.3% (-1.1)
Labour 16.5% (+1.2)
Liberal Democrats 7.0% (n/c)

(The Poll of Polls for Westminster voting intentions uses the Scottish subsamples from all GB-wide polls that have been conducted entirely within the last seven days and for which datasets have been provided, and also all full-scale Scottish polls that have been conducted at least partly within the last seven days. Full-scale polls are given ten times the weighting of subsamples.)