Drama as YouGov poll shows a pro-independence majority

The first post-election poll on independence has been published, and it suggests that the long-anticipated (but highly elusive) swing to Yes by Remainers who voted No in 2014 may have finally taken place on a really telling scale.

Should Scotland be an independent country? (YouGov, 22nd-27th January 2020):

Yes 51% (+7)

No 49% (-7)

Bear in mind that YouGov have in recent years been one of the most No-friendly firms, so it shouldn't be assumed that 51% is as good as it's going to get for Yes - it's conceivable that other firms will show something a little better, but we'll have to wait and see.  On the other hand, the 7% swing to Yes may be a touch exaggerated, because the previous YouGov poll looks very much like an outlier in retrospect - it showed a sharp dip in the Yes vote that wasn't picked up by other pollsters.  But it seems highly probable that YouGov's new numbers are reflecting some sort of genuine swing on the ground - 49% was the highest Yes vote they reported last year, and they haven't shown an outright Yes lead since 2015.

An intriguing supplementary question attempts to measure the depth of both support for and opposition to independence, and finds that absolutely definite Yes and No voters are tied on 35% apiece.  For my money that's a highly encouraging finding, because there's always a danger that a sudden swing might be based on rather shaky foundations.  That doesn't appear to be the case here - there's no longer any underlying 'natural majority' for No.

The unionist parties will of course ignore the headline result on independence and point to the finding that a majority are opposed to holding an independence referendum this year.  But the snag is that 44% are in favour of holding a referendum within the next five years (ie. within the next Holyrood parliamentary term) and only 39% are opposed.  With Don't Knows excluded, that's a pro-referendum majority of around 53% to 47%.  Given that the Tory government take the extremist and ludicrous line that no referendum can be held until after Nicola Sturgeon's death (which could potentially mean another fifty years of delay!), it's safe to say that the public are a lot, lot closer to the SNP's view on referendum timing than they are to the Tories' view.

Thoughtful Scottish Tory MSPs (if such a thing exists) will be deeply concerned that this poll shows they are about to make an error of historic proportions by confirming Jackson Carlaw as their official leader.  It looks like he can't be absolved of blame for the election disaster last month - he has a dismal net personal rating of -29, which is 29 points worse than Nicola Sturgeon's and almost as bad as Richard Leonard's.  (Yes, it's that bad.)

From a personal point of view, I breathed a sign of relief when I read through the list of questions that YouGov asked.  As you know, this blog will be publishing a poll in the very near future, and I was slightly concerned that there might be a significant amount of overlap between YouGov's questions and the ones that I asked.  But as it turns out, there's no real duplication at all, except on the independence question itself.  (Unless of course YouGov have a second batch of questions that they haven't released yet, but time will tell.)