Support for independence once again holds up in the second poll to be conducted since the start of the war

Many thanks to an anonymous commenter on the previous thread for alerting me to the existence of a new Savanta ComRes poll - I probably would have overlooked it until tomorrow if he/she hadn't mentioned it.  

Should Scotland be an independent country? (Scotsman / Savanta ComRes, 10th-16th March 2022)

Yes 48% (-1)

No 52% (+1)

You might get the impression from some of the mainstream media's reporting of this poll that the increase in the No vote is 2%, but that's because the comparison is being made with the previous poll in the semi-regular Scotsman / ComRes series.  In fact, the correct comparison is with the more recent ComRes poll commissioned by the Economist, which had No in a very slight lead.

The Scotsman's own write-up of the poll should be taken with a heavy dose of salt, not least because it's written by Conor Matchett, who played a leading role in the notorious #Matchettgate fake poll scandal last year (indeed he gave his own name to the scandal).  In truth, today's numbers should be regarded as a tremendous relief for the Yes camp.  The previous ComRes poll was conducted at the very start of the invasion of Ukraine, and there was an obvious danger that as voters became preoccupied with the reporting of the war over a period of days and weeks that support for independence could have been adversely affected.  That appears not to have happened - the percentage change is statistically insignificant, and leaves the state of play roughly in line with the average results ComRes have produced over the last twelve months or so.  (Which also means that Joyce McMillan's accompanying analysis piece in the Scotsman speculating about the reasons for the 'fall in Yes support' is based on a false premise.)

Central to Matchett's reporting of the poll is a supplementary question that purports to show that, by a 2-1 margin, voters in Scotland think "discussions on when a second independence referendum should take place" should "stop" rather than "continue" due to the war.  (What discussions?  Yeah, exactly.)  That's an absurdly leading question that was deliberately designed to generate a unionist-friendly headline.  It pretty much guaranteed that the half of the population who oppose independence would eagerly say "discussions" should "stop", while significant numbers of independence supporters would join them due to a sense that they ought to.  It was the response that was clearly expected of them, after all.  With a bit of luck, that little stunt will prove to be pointless, because the mood music suggests that the Russia-Ukraine negotiations have a reasonable chance of bringing the war to an end.

The poll also has Holyrood voting intention numbers, which don't show dramatic changes, but are of interest for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, Labour have established themselves in a clear second place by opening up some daylight on the constituency ballot, and overtaking the Tories on the list ballot.  And secondly, Alba are registering (or "languishing" as Matchett rather desperately puts it!) on 2% for a third successive poll, which gives the distinct impression that Alex Salmond's party may have bounced back slightly in recent weeks.

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:

SNP 46% (-1)

Labour 24% (+2)

Conservatives 20% (+1)

Liberal Democrats 7% (-1)

Scottish Parliament list ballot:

SNP 34% (-)

Labour 22% (+2)

Conservatives 20% (-1)

Greens 13% (-1)

Liberal Democrats 8% (-)

Alba 2% (-)

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Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.) 

Scot Goes Pop fundraising for 2022: the launch

Click here to go straight to the Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser page for 2022.

It's more or less exactly two years since Scot Goes Pop commissioned its first opinion poll. It was a very successful exercise, showing that the impact of the December 2019 general election result had taken the pro-independence vote to its highest level since just after the Brexit referendum in the summer of 2016.  Several people said to me afterwards that they'd like me to continue with regular monthly Scot Goes Pop polls on independence - which would have been a nice idea in theory, but I think I can now say beyond a shadow of doubt that it was never feasible.  I seem to have done little else but fundraise over the last two years - I'm sure at times it's been tiresome for readers and it's certainly been embarrassing at times for me.  And yet in spite of that I've only barely raised enough to cover the cost of the six polls I've commissioned, which have averaged out at one every four months or so.  To have commissioned monthly polls, I would have needed to raise well in excess of £100,000 since January 2020, which simply isn't doable for the likes of me.  Stuart Campbell is probably the one and only person in the Scottish political blogosphere capable of pulling it off.

Bearing that in mind, I regard the six polls Scot Goes Pop has actually managed to commission so far as quite a feat, and it's difficult to know whether to laugh or cry when I hear that people on another high-profile pro-indy blog have been making snide comments essentially implying that I am a grifter.  Even just the three polls I commissioned in 2021 had a cumulative cost that was well into five figures. To pay for that required not just the funds from the dedicated polling crowdfunders, but also a significant percentage of the funds from the Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2021, which was initially intended to supplement my own income and help keep the website going.  The idea that I've been pocketing the money and sailing off in a luxury yacht is absolutely laughable.  Things have actually been really tight recently.

I also ran into a number of specific problems in the middle of last year.  As you might remember, a former long-term commenter on this blog was so angry that I had joined "the wrong sort" of pro-independence party that he made determined efforts to sabotage the ongoing poll fundraising efforts.  He vexatiously demanded refunds of ancient donations that had been long since spent in exactly the way promised, and loudly broadcast what he was doing to the world (or to the readers of Wee Ginger Dug, at any rate). He even left lengthy comments on newspaper websites giving a list of spurious reasons why people shouldn't donate to Scot Goes Pop fundraisers.  Those were petty and profoundly cynical stunts that simply redoubled my determination that I would get the third poll of the year done one way or another - and I did.  But I don't think there's much doubt that our old friend's interventions made the exercise far more challenging than it otherwise would have been.

The third poll of the year was a comprehensive poll on GRA reform and related gender issues, with voting intention questions and a few supplementary questions about independence also added on.  Because of the controversial subject matter, I had to make sure that I only used funds that had been donated specifically with a GRA poll in mind.  By the time we were well into the autumn, not enough had been raised, and yet I had people on Twitter getting restless and saying: "Where is the GRA poll you promised, James?  The women and girls of Scotland are waiting and watching!"  To which I could only reply with some bemusement that it was a bit difficult to commission a poll without enough money.  Nevertheless, the GRA issue was clearly time-sensitive due to the promise of the Scottish Government to legislate for reform in the very near future, so I had to break the logjam somehow.  I eventually went ahead and commissioned the poll, using my own money to cover the shortfall, and then I set up a dedicated polling crowdfunder to both compensate me for that and help pay for the next poll. So far that's raised £4175 of a £6500 target (there have also been a number of additional donations via Paypal).

As it's no longer 2021, it's also time to draw the curtain on last year's general fundraiser, and start afresh with a Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.  So that's what I've done, and you can visit the new GoFundMe crowdfunder page HERE.

I want to once again thank everyone who has donated to Scot Goes Pop over the years - when you stop and think about it, it's amazing what we've achieved together.  By commissioning and publishing full-scale polls from reputable BPC-affiliated firms, we've done something that is normally the preserve of the mainstream media, or of political parties and think tanks.  And that has allowed us to set the agenda with the questions that actually interest us, rather than passively look on as unionist media outlets ask unionist-flavoured poll questions.

As I said at this time last year, I expect the fundraising to continue to be a slowburner.  So please bear with me as I promote the crowdfunder at the end of each blogpost for the foreseeable future.  I do intend to run another poll, but this time I'm going to do my best to avoid crisis-points.  Fundraising takes as long as it takes, so I'll just wait until the moment arrives when the funding is fully nailed down.  We'll get there, have no fear.

To reiterate, here are the options for donating:

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.)

You can also view the promo film for Scot Goes Pop that I made with the amazing Phantom Power...

The best local election voting strategy for Alba supporters

I received a query of sorts about the local elections yesterday, and hopefully if I keep it anonymised, the person who sent it won't mind me quoting him - 

"I am really struggling with what to do when it comes to the council elections my friend. Luckily, I will have Leigh Wilson at the top of my ballot and the former COSLA leader is now standing as an independent (Referendum friendly by all accounts) but I just can’t bring myself to put the SNP and greens anywhere high up and I certainly don’t want any of the Yoons close to it either. I know I should vote till I boke but it’s a hell of a conundrum to say the least. My folks, who do a toner of leafleting for Alba are planning to spoil their votes because they don’t have an Alba Candidate for their ward so they are stuck too. Is there any way we could get the LACU’s to distribute information on the best course of action so that we can try to facilitate the best outcome possible. I know that you don’t believe in “rigging the system” but surely we need to do something to send that message, to the Yoons and now (ffs) Bute House. I know your a busy man so if you don’t have time to respond, I understand completely."

This once again gives me the opportunity to clear up some confusion, because the issue of "rigging the system" or "gaming the system" is simply not relevant to any election that is not conducted by the Additional Member System, or to put it another way, any election that is not a Scottish Parliament election.  When I used to caution against attempting to game the Holyrood system, people used to shout back at me "don't unionist parties game Westminster elections all the time by urging tactical voting?", which completely and utterly missed the point, because "gaming the system" refers to something much more specific than tactical voting or informal cooperation between parties.  There's a very particular and idiosyncratic "bug" in the Additional Member System, which if exploited properly (something which is very difficult to do) could be seen in some ways as cheating.  It has a completely different character to it from the strategies that can be used in other electoral systems.

Fortunately, one of those other systems is being used in May for the local elections, so we can strategise away to our hearts' content.  From the point of view of an Alba supporter who wants to maximise pro-independence representation, I don't think there's anything complicated about the strategy that should be used, and it's as follows...

1) Give your first preference vote to Alba, if there's an Alba candidate in your ward.

2) Give your next preferences to any SNP candidates in your ward.

3) Give your next preference to the Green candidate, if there's a Green candidate in your ward.

4) Give your next preferences to any independent candidates or minor party candidates in your ward who are either in favour of independence, or at least neutral on the subject.  (The exception to this would obviously be if the candidates in question are fascists or nutters.)

5) This is less important, but there's arguably a case for then giving your next preferences to Labour and the Liberal Democrats, just to make sure the Tories and their "muscular unionism" are ranked absolute rock bottom.

Although Alba will be standing in a large number of wards, they won't be standing everywhere.  And actually, having been to various meetings, it looks pretty likely that my own ward in Cumbernauld will not have an Alba candidate.  (Before anyone asks, I would have seriously considered putting myself forward as a candidate if it hadn't been for the pandemic, but because I live with a vulnerable person, it's just not realistic at this stage to contemplate throwing myself into a campaign involving a huge amount of personal contact with a huge number of people.) If that's the way it works out, I will have no hesitation in ranking the SNP top in my ward.  I can't really see why any committed independence supporter would not do that - we live in an imperfect world, and you just choose the best option that's actually available.  I know anecdotally that there are Alba supporters out there (hopefully a very small minority) who hate the SNP too much to even give them a ranking, but what that's effectively saying is that other issues are more important to you than independence.  

For me, just speaking personally, independence always comes first.  If you don't want a unionist-run  council, you have to give your top rankings to ALL of the pro-independence candidates in your ward. It really is that simple.  If you don't do that, you are effectively abstaining on the question of whether you want pro-independence councillors or unionist councillors.  How does abstaining help?

*  *  *

Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.) 

Alba Ahoy! New pro-indy kid on the block continues to register with 2% of the list vote in latest Savanta ComRes poll

At long last, we have the datasets from the Savanta ComRes poll commissioned by The Economist, and some of the lingering questions can be answered.  Firstly, the all-important fieldwork dates.  The poll was conducted between the 24th and 28th of February, meaning it coincided with the first five days of the war in Ukraine.  That may be a positive sign, because there's always a danger that a major international crisis could dampen support for independence, and yet the poll produced a 49% showing for Yes, which is relatively good when you bear in mind that ComRes have typically been on the No-friendly end of the spectrum in recent times.  That said, most people tend to complete online polls on the day they are sent the link, which presumably means most responses will have been collected on the 24th - the very first day of the invasion.  Given that the sheer scale of Russia's actions came as a bolt from the blue, it may well be that it took the public a certain amount of time to truly 'process' what was happening - and if so, we may not really know the effect of the war on support for independence (if any) until the next poll appears.

The Yes vote is sky-high among the younger age groups, at 79% among 16-24 year olds, and 73% among 25-34 year olds.  You have to go up to the 55-64 year olds to find the first age group that is narrowly opposed to independence, but as usual, the real backbone of the slim overall No lead in the poll is the over-65s, who break 3-1 against self-government.

The unionist media's reporting of the poll gave the impression that there was no great public appetite for an early independence referendum, which made me wonder if the questions had been framed entirely neutrally.  You won't be surprised to hear that they weren't. The question that asked about the timing of a referendum offered six options - in the next year, in the next two years, in the next five years, in the next ten years, longer than the next ten years, and never.  On the principle that people without strong feelings tend to hover towards the middle options, they were effectively being guided towards the five year and ten year responses.  For my money, you'd have got a far more meaningful result by simply asking a binary Yes/No question on the Scottish Government's stated timetable of late 2023.  The good news, however, is that just 23% of respondents think a second independence referendum should never be held, and there is an absolute majority (55%) for holding it at some point within the next decade.

There's a question that asks about "which conditions should be placed on a new independence referendum".  That's seriously dodgy, because it implants the notion in respondents' heads that it's somehow obvious that there should be conditions.  Importantly, however, there is opposition to the suggestion that Westminster's agreement should be a condition.

There's a downright peculiar question about the extent to which the Scottish Government's plans for a referendum make respondents feel "anxious" or "relieved".  If anxiety was going to be mentioned at all, I'd have thought the more natural two poles are "anxiety" and "excitement".  There can't be all that many Yes supporters whose first reaction to the genuine calling of a referendum would be "oh gosh I'm so relieved".

The poll also contains Scottish Parliament voting intention numbers...

Constituency ballot:

SNP 47% (-)

Labour 22% (-)

Conservatives 21% (+2)

Liberal Democrats 8% (-)

Regional list ballot:

SNP 34% (-4)

Conservatives 21% (+3)

Labour 20% (-)

Greens 14% (+2)

Liberal Democrats 8% (-1)

Alba 2% (-)

Across all polling firms, there have been ten polls with Holyrood voting intention numbers since the election last May.  Of the first eight, only one had Alba above 1% on the list vote, whereas this is now the second in a row to have them on 2%.  So that could be a positive sign with the local elections fast approaching. (Having said that, three of the first eight polls were conducted by Panelbase, who literally don't even allow respondents to give a preference for Alba!)

34% is the lowest list vote for the SNP in any poll since May, but that can perhaps be mostly explained by the good showings for both Alba and the Greens - the latter's 14% is unusually high.  What is a little troubling, though, is that there may be signs of a Tory bounceback on both ballots.

*  *  *

Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.)

#Referendum2023: Can a hashtag shape history - or at least shame history?

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ 

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ 

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

So I've been reading with great interest Paul Kavanagh reporting to Wee Ginger Dug readers, under the title "Referendum 2023", that the Scottish Government's "plan" to hold a referendum in the latter part of next year "remains on track".  That could be seen as rather carefully chosen language, because of course any plan to hold a referendum next year would technically "remain on track" until the Tory government and/or the Supreme Court are given the chance to formally say no - and part of the whole problem is that we haven't even got to that stage yet.

But in fairness Paul goes on to use what appears to be much less tricksy language.  He notes that some people (hi!) will never be satisfied because they have "convinced themselves" that the Scottish Government are only pretending to want a referendum.  (Translation: we've learned from repeated past experience that the Scottish Government are only pretending to want a referendum.)  He adds that "the rest of us" have received "welcome confirmation" that a referendum "will indeed go ahead in the latter half of 2023".

Well now, blimey, that's quite a statement.  Since when have the Scottish Government - or their most loyal supporters - conceded that they have the ability to simply decide that a referendum will indeed go ahead on a certain date?  They are the ones who insist that we must have a "gold standard" process requiring consent from Westminster that we know is not going to be forthcoming within such a tight timescale.  They are the ones who idiotically use language like "legal referendum", implying that any referendum not sanctioned by the Tory government or by the Supreme Court would be "illegal". (In reality, we do not live in Spain, and in the United Kingdom there is no such thing as an "illegal vote" - merely a vote that has no legal effect.)

So unless there's been a complete U-turn while we were all napping, Paul's statement that a referendum "will indeed go ahead" appears to be literally devoid of all meaning.  I can only assume the get-out clause will be "no-one could possibly have foreseen that Boris Johnson would say no, but don't worry, he's sure to realise his stance is totally unsustainable by 2025!"

Long-term readers may remember that I was bemused in mid-2017 by Peter A Bell's repeated use on Twitter of the hashtag #Referendum2018. I pointed out to him that no-one in the SNP leadership had actually committed to a referendum in 2018, and judging from the mood music it was extremely unlikely to happen that early.  But he explained that it was a kind of "fake it until it's real" exercise - he thought that if enough people used the hashtag often enough, the Scottish Government would be forced to accept that a referendum in September 2018 was strategically inevitable.  Well, I think we can safely deduce from the failure of Peter's wheeze (and the failure of his similar #DissolveTheUnion wheeze) that hashtags alone cannot change the course of history.

But now that, for the first time, the SNP leadership have committed themselves to a rough date, the calculation may be slightly different.  It would be interesting to see if liberal use of #Referendum2023 could make it harder for them to allow the timetable to slip yet again.  So here are some thoughts about what you can tweet with the #Referendum2023 hashtag:

* Your plans for a referendum night watch party with your mates.  #Referendum2023

* What nibbles you plan to get in for referendum night.  #Referendum2023

* Speculation on who the BBC presenters will be for the results programme.  Will Sarah Smith be brought back for one night only?  #Referendum2023

* Invite SNP MSPs to speak at referendum hustings in your town.  #Referendum2023

* Should you take your own pen to the polling station?  Thoughts, please?  #Referendum2023

* Make suggestions for a new hat George Galloway could wear at the televised debates.  #Referendum2023

And if, as impossible as it may seem, we arrive at New Year's Day 2024 without a referendum having actually taken place, for heaven's sake don't stop using the #Referendum2023 hashtag.  It'll be an important way of forcing SNP leadership loyalists to notice and accept that they've allowed the goalposts to shift yet again.  So tell us about...

* Your favourite fictional memories of encounters with dogs at polling stations on referendum day.  #Referendum2023

* Your favourite fictional result on referendum night.  Was it that sensational Yes majority in Clackmannanshire?  #WellDoneClacks #Referendum2023

* Reminisce about that priceless fictional expression on BBC pundit Blair McDougall's face as the results came in.  Memories to last a lifetime!  #Referendum2023

*  *  *

Please bear with me as I continue promoting Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive.  Opinion polls are so expensive that since I started commissioning them, fundraising has almost become like painting the Forth Bridge.  If you'd like to help this blog continue for another year, or to help us commission another full-scale poll like the six we've commissioned over the last two years, here are the various options for donating...

Via the new Scot Goes Pop general fundraiser for 2022.

Via the Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser for 2021-22, which I set up in the autumn and is part-funded.

If you prefer to donate directly, that can be done via Paypal or bank transfer:  

My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Or email me for my bank details.  (My contact email address is different from my Paypal address, and can be found in the sidebar of the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.)