It shows you how much the calling of a snap general election changes our priorities, but we've just had two new polls in which the question about independence has been treated as an afterthought. Let's put that right, because the findings make for moderately pleasant reading. Here are the Survation numbers...
Should Scotland be an independent country? (Survation)
Yes 46.9% (+0.1)
No 53.1% (-0.1)
A 0.1% swing in favour of Yes is obviously not remotely significant, but here's the thing - this poll is not directly comparable with the last Survation poll, because 16 and 17 year olds were excluded this time. There's a semi-reasonable excuse for that, because the independence question was a supplementary in a poll that was primarily interested in voting intentions for an election from which under-18s will be excluded. But it does mean there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the increase in the Yes vote might otherwise be a tad bigger. At the very least, there doesn't seem to have been any recent slippage in support for independence.
The Panelbase datasets aren't out yet, but it appears that 16 and 17 year olds were also excluded from that poll. In spite of that in-built handicap, Yes manages a small increase.
Should Scotland be an independent country? (Panelbase)
Yes 45% (+1)
No 55% (-1)
Basically the Survation numbers are par for the course, and the Panelbase numbers perhaps remain a little below par - but in combination the two polls give the lie to any notion that support for independence is consistently slipping below the 45% achieved in the 2014 referendum. For what it's worth, it remains the case that the only published telephone poll of the year so far actually gave Yes a very slight outright lead.
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I'm still not sure how the Greens fared in the Panelbase poll, but we're not going to get an answer from Survation, who seemingly just lumped the Greens in with UKIP and others in a general "some other party" category. That said, including the Greens can also produce a distorted outcome, because people might indicate that they are planning to vote Green when there isn't even a Green candidate in their own constituency.
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Scottish subsamples of GB-wide polls are obviously much less meaningful than full-scale Scottish polls. Nevertheless, the first inkling we had of the Scottish Tory surge over the last few days came from subsamples, which makes it interesting that the two most recent subsamples we have right now are somewhat less favourable for the Tories. Both are based on fieldwork that is slightly more up-to-date than the two full-scale polls from Survation and Panelbase. Today's YouGov subsample has the SNP on 49% and the Tories on 27%, while the subsample from today's Britain-wide Survation poll has the SNP on 45% and the Tories on only 19% (behind even Labour).
Imagine living in a country where fewer than half the population support independence when the alternative is dominion by rapacious fascists. If I wasn't dying anyway I's slit my wrists.
ReplyDeleteI know. I remain completely befuddled about the Scottish psyche. It seems the decades of Unionist propaganda through the MSM and BBC is having an impact.
DeleteIt seem Goebbels WAS right = "A lie once told remains a lie. But a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth".
To some Scots we really ARE Too small, Too poor, and Too stupid to run our own country.
A number of people are making an observation which I think has some truth in it. In order to achieve independence, Labour had to be removed as a unionist party. Unionist Labour is a serious impediment because it holds many decent, egalitarian-minded people in the unionist fold.
DeleteObviously they could have chosen to change that themselves in 2013-14, supported independence (or at least said they were agnostic, something to be said for it maybe), and Yes would have won. But they didn't. They then chose to double down rather than reconsider. So what next.
What next is that the Scottish Labour party is pretty much dead as a serious political force in Scotland. They may well be completely wiped out from the Westminster landscape in six weeks time. And that's on top of a massacre of councillors due in less than a fortnight.
Inevitably, really, the Tories have become the party of the emotional, blood-and-soil unionists. The Orange Order, the Rangers fans, the xenophobic wing of the Brexit movement and so on. So although it's a nasty shock, we shouldn't be all that surprised.
Many people have estimated the hardcore Britnat percentage in Scotland to be around 30% to 35%. These people are now coalescing round the Conservative party. But that's it. This is getting nasty, there's no doubt about it, but the nastier it gets the less likely the decent, civic-minded, generally left-of-centre Scot is likely to join them.
It's shaping up into what we tried to avoid three years ago, a contest of identities. But if it comes to that, they'll lose. Come indyref2, the drift of people whose primary national identity is Scots will take Yes over the 50% mark. Patience.
Some folk sure are being dramatic about a couple of polls putting the indy-supporting parties on 45%+. I wonder how they'd have coped in the days when they were polling about 15%.
DeleteIt would be helpful if all fascists slit their wrists! And moreso so the English hating Jock Fascists.
DeleteIt certainly was a nasty shock to me, Rolfe: I didn't think even the hardcore 30 to 35% would all flock so readily to the Tories, yet in times of crisis, they really do seem to have gone for "the devil they know."
DeleteAll I can think is of just what a waste it was. It could've been so different.
It could have been different, but it wasn't. Take comfort. When it became obvious that Yes had lost, my first thought was that the Unionists would do the Rowling thing - pretend to be nice and butter us up for a few years so that the Yes campaign haemorrhaged suppport and went back to sleep.
DeleteThen Cameron came out with his EVEL speech. Remember, I was still at the count, we hadn't even declared by then. I realised on the spot that the Rowling pacification wasn't going to happen. I drove home under a lightening sky realising that it was going to be quicker than it might have been.
Without that crucial period of pretending to be nice to Scotland and seeming to treat us as a valued equal partner in this precious union, the independence campaign wasn't going to enter a period of stagnation. Instead, though, I expected things to get pretty nasty until eventually Scotland realised there was only one way out.
I thought even that would take ten years. Although that was better than the 20-25 I thought it would take if they'd spent a bit of time being nice to us. I thought it was going to be tough and I wasn't looking forward to it.
Brexit and now May have turbocharged the whole thing. We could well be independent five years after the original No vote. Better this way than dragging it out. But make no mistake, doing it this way was always going to be the hard way and that's the road we were set on on 19th September 2014. Just be grateful it's a shorter road than it seemed at the beginning.
I am confident the Tory performance in Scotland will slip back before the GE. The big question is will it slip back in time for the Local Elections. The SNP will have to work on turnout and I hope to hear plenty of loudspeakers on polling day.
ReplyDeleteThe yoon ultras were planning on tactical voting on a large scale for the locals which was already fraught with difficulty for them. Now, as we all know, the tories are hardly going to go along with that if they detect even a sniff of a chance of power for themselves.
DeleteThey might well keep demanding Labour votes for them but they will hardly be so keen to return the favour while they are still out of their minds with delusions of grandeur and the 'unstoppable scottish tory surge'.
Regardless, if the SNP and pro-indy parties stick to putting pro-indy first, unaligned in the middle and the yoon parties at the bottom of their numbering then we should counter the tories and their red tory and yellow tory chums.
There is also no question that turnout will be absolutely vital.
Anyone who wants to keep Independence an option and to get a better quality of local representation and council needs to get out there and remind family, friends and the public at large to vote or their voice and opinion will simply be ignored and count for nothing.
Those figures for indy ref 2 aren't bad, and also in Survation 40% of undecided voters say they'd be more likely to support Yes if Conservatives win the election.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree, I think the SNP will get around 45% of the vote or a little over as there will be the Green vote to squeeze. Any remaining UKIP vote could be squeezed by the Tories however.
I'll point out that Survation doesn't weigh by EU referendum at all while Panelbase does, so I think as far as the election is concerned panelbase will be more accurate.
Those figures for indy ref 2 aren't bad, and also in Survation 40% of undecided voters say they'd be more likely to support Yes if Conservatives win the election.
DeleteSo these voters are going for No for the time being because they think Corbyn might win? Seems a tad implausible.
I honestly think some of them do hope beyond hope: even after everything that's happened, they still want to believe that Corbyn could win - even though he's had to battle *his own bloody party* for the past year, let alone an election.
DeleteI had a look at the UK wide poll yesterday as they came online to see the Scottish subsets and had noticed that they were much like all the other UK polls over the past month. Interesting that the support for Independence has remained constant despite what the right wing press try to infer.
ReplyDeleteWell,we know what the Tories want, damned if I know what Slab wants, there is no plan that I've seen, except to go back to pre-2007.
ReplyDeleteSLabbers want to curl up in a ball and cry.
DeleteThey murdered the Labour movement in Scotland and they did it to themselves. Not for principle, not for power but to tell Tory lies and support British Nationalism. Two things that the Labour movement should never, ever have gone near.
Frank Sobotka @cymrurouge Apr 21
ReplyDeleteFrank Sobotka Retweeted Conservatives
Lads, you literally threatened to bomb Spain a fortnight ago
That-Flipping-Woman @FlippingWoman 3h
ReplyDeleteScottish Labour want Tories to win!
This is response by Labour councillor to 'will the SNP MP hold his seat?' pic.twitter.com/LGQ6Efpjra
Labour neither want the Blue Tories or the Yellow Tories to win anything.
DeleteVote Labour and rid us of both scum.
The troll calls scottish people "jocks", advocates arming Leave campaigners, arbitrary deportations and public mutilations, claimed Jo Cox's husband was a fascist, uses racial, homophobic and ethnic slurs, pretends to be Labour (badly) while espousing far-right racist hate-speech, praises Theresa May and the tories and displays a perverted poisonous obsession with Scotland's First Minister & her predecessor
Delete"Can't we just jump to @RuthDavidsonMSP being First Minister?"
Delete- Ian Smart Scottish Labour Spokesperson, TV pundit and British Nationalist
Adam Ramsay @AdamRamsay Apr 19
DeleteMet a Labour staffer in London this evening. Said she hopes Scotland elects Tory MPs to keep the SNP out, coz Labour's stuffed w/o Scotland.
She didn't know that I was either Scottish or a journalist. Just blurted it out like it's an obvious opinion for a Labour staffer to have.
Paul Kavanagh @weegingerdug 16 minutes ago
DeleteIan Murray has advised Scots to vote tactically for the Tories, then he'll blame the SNP for letting the Tories into power.
Think he agreed that the concept might have had some validity. Then called out the way that it always seems to be that Labour and Lib Dem supporters should hold their noses and vote Conservative but never in the other direction. If you were at all suspicious you might think some polls bigging up the Conservatives chances are intended to be self fulfilling.
DeleteLindsay Bruce @RogueCoder250 8 hours ago
ReplyDeleteMundell's election expenses and why they don't add up.
http://zelo-street.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/tory-expenses-mundell-miracle.html …
I am pretty confident that the SNP will be sitting around 45-46% of the vote come the he
ReplyDeleteThis election is already showing signs of the Tories overplaying their hand. The whole reason for voting Tory, aye for floaters is very reactionary, oppose a 2nd ref....unfortunately for the Tories the election isnt 2moro. Voters slowly get to find out what a vote for the Tories means.
Its already started with Fridays news regarding Tory policies...very long way to go.
A vote for the Tartan Tories means the Jock rich will get richer and the poor poorer.
DeleteThe troll calls scottish people "jocks", advocates arming Leave campaigners, arbitrary deportations and public mutilations, claimed Jo Cox's husband was a fascist, uses racial, homophobic and ethnic slurs, pretends to be Labour (badly) while espousing far-right racist hate-speech, praises Theresa May and the tories and displays a perverted poisonous obsession with Scotland's First Minister & her predecessor
DeleteDo these polls also exclude EU nationals (who can't vote in a GE)?
ReplyDeleteI've ruined myself , my new goat kicked me right on the money shot and my left baw's the size of a rugger ball
ReplyDeleteThree cheers for the goat...
ReplyDelete