Scot Goes Pop / Survation poll: Sensation as Scottish voters give their backing to the McEleny/MacNeil plan to use *this year's* Holyrood election to secure an outright independence mandate

Every time I've crowdfunded a poll, by far the most requested question has been on the subject of a 'Plan B' to secure an independence mandate if a Section 30 order is never granted.  To avoid duplication, I've taken a different angle for the question each time, and it might be worth starting this post with a reminder of the results from the previous three polls (all conducted by Panelbase) - 

January 2020: By a margin of 50% to 39%, respondents said the Scottish Parliament should legislate for an independence referendum in the absence of a Section 30 order, and then allow the courts to decide whether it can take place.

June 2020: By a margin of 49% to 29%, respondents said pro-independence parties should consider using an election at some point in the future to double as an independence referendum.

November 2020: By a margin of 63% to 37%, respondents backed the general principle of a Plan B being used at some point over the coming five-year Holyrood term if the UK Government remains intransigent.

The June question was in principle fairly similar to what Chris McEleny and Angus MacNeil MP are proposing, but it wasn't quite as specific, because of course they don't just want to use an election to obtain an indy mandate at some point in the future - they essentially want to do it right now, in the Holyrood election that is only a matter of weeks away.  So as I'd already covered pretty much every other angle in previous polls, I thought I might as well throw in the kitchen sink this time, and use our new Survation poll to ask about the specific McEleny/MacNeil plan.  I was fully expecting this to be the first occasion on which we'd got a negative result on a Plan B question, because I thought that voters would think that we shouldn't rush our fences, and that we should at least go through the motions of making one last push for an agreed referendum before moving on to Plan B.  But I was wrong.

The UK Government has stated that it will seek to prevent a Scottish independence referendum taking place for several decades, regardless of whether Scottish voters elect a Scottish Government committed to holding a referendum.  In view of this stance, do you think pro-independence parties, such as the SNP and the Scottish Greens, should or should not include an outright independence pledge in their manifestos for this year's scheduled Scottish Parliament election, to give people the opportunity to vote for or against independence?  (Scot Goes Pop / Survation poll, 11th-13th January 2021): 

Should: 45%

Should not: 36%

With Don't Knows excluded, it works out as -

Should: 55%

Should not: 45%

I'd suggest this result poses a major problem for the Pete Wisharts of this world, who base at least part of their opposition to Plan B on the assumption that voters are intrinsically hostile to any way forward that does not involve the express permission of the UK Government, and that the SNP would thus pay a heavy electoral price for flirting with the idea.  But that's a difficult argument to maintain when voters have given the thumbs-up to what is just about the most 'extreme' variant of Plan B - ie. abandoning Plan A right away and going for an outright indy mandate in just four months from now.  SNP voters from the 2019 general election are behind the McEleny/MacNeil plan by the overwhelming margin of 74% to 10%, as are Yes voters from 2014 by a margin of 75% to 12%.  Unionists are naturally opposed on the whole, although substantial minorities of Labour voters (31%), Liberal Democrats voters (26%) and Leave voters (35%) are in favour.  

My own thinking is that once every option for a referendum is closed off, a plebiscitary election should not just be considered a possibility, but should become a default certainty.  However, we will not reach the point of every option having been exhausted until we've legislated for a referendum and the courts have adjudicated upon it - and that can't happen this side of the 2021 election.  On the other hand, Chris McEleny and Angus MacNeil do have a very good point in the sense that if we spurn the opportunity of using this election to gain a mandate, when will the next opportunity come?  We surely can't just twiddle our thumbs until the 2026 Holyrood vote.  In theory, we could easily engineer an early Holyrood election in 2022 or 2023, but there are strong grounds for thinking the current leadership are far too cautious to ever do that.  The only other possibility is the 2024 Westminster election, but I've always thought it would be a big mistake to try to use the 'away fixture' of a UK general election, during which the media would be shoving Britain-wide issues down our throats, to seek an indy mandate.  

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There are still lots more questions to come from the poll, most of them Brexit-themed.  If you'd like to be the first to know when the results are published, you can follow me on Twitter HERE.