Sunday, October 30, 2022

The Scottish Social Attitudes Survey also suggests the prospect of full EU membership could be key to building a pro-independence majority

So just a postscript to my piece earlier today about the YouGov poll suggesting that the prospect of full EU membership for an independent Scotland could be the key to building a Yes majority.  It's worth pointing out that the EU factor could similarly be the explanation (or part of the explanation) for why the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey published a few weeks ago was mysteriously more favourable for independence than most conventional polling has been.

Generally the results of the Social Attitudes Survey are presented as if respondents were asked to choose between three options - independence, devolution, or no Scottish Parliament at all.  However, this is a simplification to make the results more digestible.  In fact, there are five options - two of which specifically mention the EU. That in itself makes it radically different from conventional polling, which simply asks "Should Scotland be an independent country?" and leaves respondents to make their own inferences about the implications for EU membership.

The five options are as follows...

Independent, separate from the UK and EU

Independent, separate from the UK but in EU

Part of the UK, with elected Parliament with some taxation powers

Part of the UK, with elected Parliament with no taxation powers

Part of the UK without its own elected Parliament

This is obviously a pretty antiquated format, but the reason it's used is to maintain consistency with the question that has been asked since the late 1990s.  The assumption that seemed to be made back then was that separatism was an exclusively Jock lark and that departure from the EU could be seen as the extreme end of a Jock separatism scale.  It never seemed to occur to the devisers of the survey that the UK itself might leave the EU and that people might then seek Scottish independence specifically because they wish to be less 'separatist', in other words to rejoin the EU.  (Maybe the reason the word "Scexit" hasn't really stuck is that "Scre-entry" would obviously be far more apt.)

Brexit has thus subverted the meaning of most of the survey's options.  In 1999 it would have been taken as implicit in the "part of the UK" options that this also meant "part of the EU", but in fact now there is just one option out of five that offers membership of the EU.  Looked at in that way, it's little wonder that backing for "independent, separate from the UK but in EU" has shot into the stratosphere in recent years, way out of proportion to any increase for the Yes vote in standard polls. 62% of the Scottish public voted Remain, after all.

In the most recent Social Attitudes Survey, 45% of the entire sample selected "independent, out of UK but in EU" - a massive increase from 26% in the last survey prior to the 2016 Brexit referendum.  This strongly suggests that explicitly tying independence to EU membership increases support radically, and that this factor is the main driver of the startlingly high overall 52% pro-independence figure in the latest survey.

The snag, of course, is that a small but significant percentage chose the "independent, separate from the UK and EU" option, and without those people there would be no pro-independence majority.  Does that mean it's impossible to square the circle?  That we can't get a majority by emphasising EU membership because we'd lose the "Brexiteer Yessers" along the way?  That's where the new YouGov polling is so encouraging.  It suggests that more than four-fifths of Yes-supporting Leave voters would stick with Yes even if it meant rejoining the EU.  

This, perhaps, shouldn't be a major surprise.  The Farage mob have long claimed that what the SNP are offering isn't "real" independence because it would entail "Brussels rule". But even the minority of independence supporters who view the issue through that prism are likely to realise that you certainly can't have "real" independence without bringing an end to London rule, and that may well be their first priority.

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13 comments:

  1. The real interesting question for me is whether the net support for Independence would increase if the EFTA/EEA/Single Market option for European trading and diplomatic relations were on offer as opposed to full EU membership.

    Would Remain/Yessers be so hardline that anything short of full membership of the EU make supporting Scottish Independence not worthwhile?

    Would Leave/Yessers find EFTA/EEA/Single Market membership a price worth paying for ending London rule?

    It just might be that the net effect be to produce a double whammy boost for Yes.

    If you are ever in a position to carry out another poll in the future it might be worth formulating a question to cover this.

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    1. I think the problem is that we know what the EU entails for us. It makes it easy for the SNP to argue that we would go from "disaster WM politics" to "reliable pre-2014 EU membership" if we go back into the alliance, but if we muddy the waters with the EFTA/EEA/Single Market options, it might create too much ambiguity and uncertainty.

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    2. I'm not sure that the EU does ensure what it entails for us. It would be an enitirely new agreement, no opt outs as existed previously as part of the UK.

      EFTA has a trade agreement with the UK at present so we'd inherit that arrangement. The 4 freedoms as part of the Single Market would be ours too and, in the main, that is probably what business and consumers care about the most.

      But an opinion survey covering this aspect would surely help clarify the public view on this.

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    3. Is there any point asking about EFTA when most of the population don't know what it entails or even who EFTA are? A little education of the public would help, but that's unlikely to come from The SNP.

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    4. Why would the SNP argue for EFTA when it's not their intention to join that
      Perhaps you should educate the public, but that unlikely to come from you is it

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  2. Unless Scotland can enter the EU immediately after Indy, then EFTA is a must for trading purposes. You can be both.

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    1. "Both" in terms of "one after the other", because we'd then have to leave EFTA to rejoin the EU. But I think we do need to understand that it's the EU that Remain voters are interested in. Many of them will probably barely even know what EFTA is.

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    2. I think the 4 Freedoms is key ... especially the 'labour' aspect i.e. people. If that simple message can be got across i.e. ease of travel, education in "Europe" for young folks, working abroad options then that would be, I feel, a winner.

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  3. Rejoin the EU. Leavers can take arunning jump. They've caused enough damage.

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  4. Before any referendum, de facto or otherwise, would it be helpful or counterproductive for the leader of the EU parliament or commission to publicly state an independent Scotland would be fast-tracked back into the EU? Have they sort of done that already? As always the British nationalist media will be apoplectic either way.

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  5. It's the social attitudes of our old friend Skier that need to be called into question following his beyond the pale racist outburst on WGD that even got the goat up of the WGD numpties. I think we'd all be shocked and dismayed at his outburst. His excuse that he'd had a few too many just doesn't wash. The racist Britnat, mad as a bucket of frogs British/Irish liar, a liar since 2013, who never goes skiing and says he has a French wife and produces Ski slope/Ski jump graphs on his blog that nobody reads needs to take a long hard look at himself. Even nasty Dr Jim was appalled.

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    1. What did he say? Can you tell us in an indirect way without repeating the offensive language?

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    2. James, I very much doubt this numpty Independence for Alba even read what Skier posted as it wasn't up for long before the WGD moderator deleted it. He just mimics my posts and never says anything original.
      The post referred to Sunak and his heritage. It's true that WGD numpties thought it was well out of order and racist but DrJim posted his view and he was not in the least critical. So the numpty Independence for Alba cannae even copy what I post accurately. Sadly once Skier saw the reaction to his post he then tried to justify/explain it but just dug the hole he was in even deeper. It is just that idiot Skier trying to act as if he is an expert on other subjects -racism/ identity - and getting it badly wrong because he is an idiot.

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