Latest TELEPHONE poll for #Referendum2023 says 50% of the public will vote for independence - and that's BEFORE the campaign for next year's guaranteed referendum even gets underway

Full-scale telephone polls in Scotland are relatively rare these days, but we do get one from Ipsos-Mori every few months - and it's always fascinating, because it tends to show better results for Yes than most online polls.  That raises the tantalising possibility that support for independence has for years been running at a considerably higher level than we generally assume.

Should Scotland be an independent country?  (Ipsos-Mori / STV)

Yes 50% (-4)

No 50% (+4)

So the short-term direction of travel is mildly disappointing, although actually this 50-50 split is identical to the result of an Ipsos-Mori poll around a year ago, so there's not necessarily any evidence of a longer-term decline for Yes.  And it would be hard to argue that this is anything other than an excellent platform from which to kick off our guaranteed 2023 independence referendum, especially when you bear in mind that there were Ipsos-Mori polls in the run-up to the first indyref showing a 2-1 majority for No.

Judging from the summary of the poll on the Ipsos-Mori website, it looks like there was either no Holyrood question in the poll, or the Holyrood numbers are being held back for another day.  But what we do have are Westminster voting intentions (although how relevant those are is open to question, given the majority SNP-Green government's guarantee that an independence referendum will have been held well before the next Westminster general election takes place in May 2024).

Scottish voting intentions for the next Westminster general election:

SNP 44%

Labour 23%

Conservatives 19%

Liberal Democrats 10%

Greens 3%

There are no percentage changes listed because I can't find any sign of Ipsos-Mori having previously asked the Westminster question in recent years.  There may be a slight cause for concern that the SNP are a touch below the 45% they achieved in the 2019 election, and also that there's been a clear swing from SNP to Labour, who now seem to have clearly re-established themselves as the second party of Scottish politics.  However, the gap between SNP and Labour remains twice as big as it was in Labour's mini-comeback year of 2017 under Jeremy Corbyn - and remember even that election produced only seven seats for Scottish Labour.  Also of note is the relatively strong showing for the Liberal Democrats, which supports the impression from the local elections that they may be recovering somewhat.

Last but not least, the poll confirms that the majority of the population want an independence referendum to be held at some point - with precisely 50% wanting it either by the end of 2023 or by 2026.  Just 31% of voters think a second indyref should never be held.

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