Survation's propaganda polling for "Scotland in Dungeon" is BACK - and it shows support for Scotland "leaving the United Kingdom" has held up since September, with the SNP on course for another landslide win at the UK general election

You won't be surprised to hear that the "Scottish" Daily Express has lied through its teeth yet again today about Scottish independence polling.  It's told its readers that a poll shows that support for staying in the UK has "soared", in a "devastating blow" for Nicola Sturgeon - but in fact the poll does not show anything even remotely like that, it actually shows a completely unchanged position since the previous poll in September.  It's the latest in the regular series of propaganda polls that Survation conduct for Scotland in Union (amusingly dubbed "Scotland in Dungeon" by a reader of this blog) using a loaded question intentionally designed to give the false impression that support for independence is much lower than it actually is.

Should Scotland remain in the United Kingdom or leave the United Kingdom? (Survation / Scotland in Union, 22nd December 2022 - 1st January 2023)

Remain: 59% (-)

Leave: 41% (-)

This question always, absolutely always, produces lower support for the so-called "Leave" option than the "Yes" option receives in genuine independence polls.  There are a number of plausible explanations for this phenomenon, and in my view the most likely is that the reference to "the United Kingdom" leads a significant minority of respondents to wrongly think they're being asked a question about the monarchy.  Other possibilities are that respondents are getting mixed up with the Brexit issue due to the "Remain/Leave" formulation, or that they can see that they're not actually being asked about independence at all.  "Leaving the UK" does not automatically result in outright independence (Jersey, for example, is not independent but it's not in the UK either), and there's no particular reason for anyone to infer that independence is the subject of the poll unless the question spells that out.

I've said this before, but I remain baffled as to why Survation have allowed themselves to get embroiled in this type of disreputable propaganda polling.  My impression of them is that they take a particular pride in avoiding loaded, biased or misleading question wordings, and yet that seems to go completely out of the window every few months when Scotland in Dungeon come calling.  Perhaps SiD pay some sort of "push-poll premium", or maybe there's some other explanation, although I can't imagine what it would be.

If anyone feels that the latest blatant lie from the Express warrants a complaint to the press regulator under the accuracy clause of the Editors' Code, here is the form you'll need.  The only conceivable excuse I can see for the Express is that there were fewer Don't Knows in this poll than in the September poll, meaning that in the figures including Don't Knows, both the 'Remain' and 'Leave' vote has risen.  However, the Editors' Code specifies that headlines should be supported by the text of the article, and that isn't the case here - the only version of the figures the Express give in the article is the one with Don't Knows stripped out, which show no increase at all in the 'Remain' vote.

Believe it or not, the poll isn't completely useless, because it did ask for Westminster and Holyrood voting intentions using standard questions (although there's the traditional problem with Survation polls that the SNP always seem to be understated on the Holyrood list vote).

Scottish voting intentions for the next UK general election:

SNP 44% (-)

Labour 31% (-1)

Conservatives 16% (+1)

Liberal Democrats 6% (-)

Greens 1% (n/a)

Reform UK 1% (n/a)

Seats projection: SNP 48 (-), Labour 7 (+6), Liberal Democrats 2 (-2), Conservatives 2 (-4)

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:

SNP 44% (-1)

Labour 29% (-1)

Conservatives 16% (+2)

Liberal Democrats 8% (+2)

Greens 1% (n/a)

Alba 1% (n/a)

Reform UK 1% (n/a)

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:

SNP 33% (+2)

Labour 26% (-1)

Conservatives 15% (+1)

Greens 12% (-2)

Liberal Democrats 9% (-)

Alba 2% (+1)

Reform UK 2% (-)

UKIP 1% (-)

Seats projection: SNP 62 (-2), Labour 32 (+10), Conservatives 17 (-14), Greens 11 (+3), Liberal Democrats 7 (+3)

Although pro-indy parties are falling a little short of an outright majority of the popular vote - which of course will matter hugely in a de facto referendum - I think the SNP will be pretty happy with these numbers.  In the context of a massive GB-wide Labour lead, it's pretty creditable for the SNP to maintain a double-digit lead in Scotland.  Labour have made some progress north of the border, but they seem to have been more or less stuck for several weeks, and are perhaps even going backwards very slightly.  There's no sign yet of a really telling Labour breakthrough.

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