I can't 100% guarantee the provenance of this, but Marcia has directed me towards a website claiming that yet another Find Out Now poll is showing Yes in the lead - if it's confirmed, that'll be six out of six for Yes in polls conducted by that firm.
Should Scotland be an independent country? (Find Out Now, 13th-20th June 2023)
Yes 47.9%
No 45.0%
I can't find the figures with Don't Knows excluded, but a rough recalculation suggests Yes may just about make it to 52% when rounded to the nearest whole number. Very disappointingly, it looks like Find Out Now have introduced weighting by recalled 2014 indyref vote in this poll - that's a massive step backwards given the danger of false recall from a vote that took place almost a decade ago. However, there's some reassurance to be gained from the fact that Yes still have the lead even after that retrograde methodological change.
Another limitation of this poll is that 16 and 17 year olds are excluded from the sample, which may conceivably have led to a very slight understatement of the Yes vote.
The news that the Scottish people have maintained their settled will in favour of independence (assuming Find Out Now are getting it broadly right) should heap further pressure on the Yousaf leadership to restore Nicola Sturgeon's de facto referendum plan. Certainly, for what it's worth, I'd urge all attendees of this weekend's SNP special conference to lend their full support to the excellent proposal Ash Regan will be putting forward.
“The time has come for #Scotland to move beyond dreaming of independence, and instead, establish a credible, tangible, and proactive path forward.”
— Ash Regan MSP (@AshReganSNP) June 23, 2023
Read the ‘#ReganProposal’, in full: https://t.co/QjQxEyQfFu#VEMforIndependence #IndyConv. pic.twitter.com/NpAm48t7HF
Regan's proposal is obviously the the right call given the buoyant Yes support. With a de facto ref the floundering SNP can hitch a ride on the Scottish people's desire for independence and keep their overwhelming dominance of Scottish seats at WM and HR. It makes complete sense. All the SNP need to do to adopt the proposal is put petty personal grievances to one side.
ReplyDeleteWhich, ridiculously, is something I can pretty much guarantee that they wont do.
Humza takes the stage. Does his best Alyn Smith impersonation.
ReplyDelete“Please! I BEG YOU. Don’t make this about independence. The party is so much bigger than that.”
Well, if only he were honest. But agreed that the actual outcome will be no change from the FAILED position post-Brexit, post-Teresa May’s meekly accepted Now is Not the Time, post-hope, post-truth and sure as day post-nationalism for the SNP.
Remember, delegates. We are here for Scotland. Not just Yes. Think of the bottle return scheme. History is watching you.
Shhh, I've secretly obtained a copy of Yousaf's speech.
Delete"Friends, we are progressively convening here to be fair and just in a progressive way and there is no magic way to progressive independence we just and fairly have to wait another progressive 316 years before we can, errr, make progress. Yadda yadda yadda".
Stunned silence.
If you reweight and remove the 2014 ref, the gap is much wider, 6.8% not excluding don't knows.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/Celebs4indy/status/1672334119378845696
It's quite possible there's a majority in favour of independence and an ambivalence towards the SNP.
ReplyDeleteTrying to work out what is the best strategy. Kind of feel like SNP have maybe had their shelf life as a party that can breach 50 percent.
Do we need a Yes Scotland party of sorts?
Something that can galvanise the majority that may exist..rather than put off 10-20% that's needed? Or do we just hope SNP can deliver?
I genuinely don't know. My gut tells me we will need a new banner to breach the 50% now. But may be wrong.
The SNP ARE the only party capable of regaining Scotland its Independence. De facto referendum at Westminster IS the way forward, let's hope the delegates get it right.
ReplyDeleteGood luck Ash ! A glimmer of hope and sense among a mass of self serving waffle.
ReplyDeleteThese figures are encouraging, and yet... a foot-dragging SNP would make it a repeat of the too-early majority in 2014 - be it referendum or GE de facto referendum. Having lost faith in the Sturgeon SNP to prepare the ground for any kind of campaign, I find "continuity" inspires only continued doubt. Does anyone see Continuity SNP building bridges or integrating work from the likes of Common Weal? Yes the figures are great, I'll hang on to that. But, before they mean anything, we need the SNP back on side.
ReplyDeleteIt's getting to the situation where the main obstacle to independence isn't Westminster britnats but the political cowards ensconced in the SNP.
ReplyDeleteJames, is it possible to 'unweight' other polls? I have no idea about this sort of thing, but I was just wondering if the IPSOS, YouGovs etc could be unweighted retrospectively? Perhaps even the occasional one over the last couple of years would provide a better picture of our true position. If possible perhaps a development of an algorithm could do this quickly.
ReplyDeleteThey do publish unweighted data as part of BPC regulations.
DeleteThank you for that anon. I have no idea about the ins and outs of these things - much appreciated.
DeleteI'm looking forward to reading your response to Yousaf's conference speech
ReplyDeleteHasn't Yousaf just announced a de facto referendum strategy at the next elections, during the speech at the conference?
ReplyDelete