Many thanks to Paul Kirkwood, who has just pointed out to me that a new Find Out Now poll on Scottish independence was released last night on Twitter. Two versions of the result are given, both with a Yes lead - one is weighted by recalled 2014 indyref vote, and the other is not. Judging by what happened last time, Find Out Now will probably specify the former as the headline numbers, in which case it's...
Should Scotland be an independent country? (Find Out Now / Independent Voices, 5th-12th September 2023)
Yes 49.4%
No 46.2%
A rough recalculation suggests that if Don't Knows are stripped out, and if rounding to the nearest whole number is done, the result is -
Yes 52%
No 48%
This continues the long-running pattern that every single Find Out Now poll that has ever been conducted on the subject shows a pro-independence majority. In other words, if Find Out Now's methodology is accurate, independence is undeniably the settled will of the people of Scotland.
This poll hasn't been widely reported yet - if it's even on The National's website I can't spot it. [UPDATE: The National posted a report on the poll literally ten minutes after I published this blogpost!] But there's no real doubt that the poll is genuine, because the Twitter account that revealed the numbers is run by a person who commissioned a previous Find Out Now poll a few months ago.
What makes the result particularly significant is that Find Out Now is of course the pollster of choice for a number of unionists - the Daily Express once commissioned a Find Out Now poll on independence, and Blair McDougall of Better Together fame recently commissioned a Find Out Now poll which was intended (ironically) to shore up Humza Yousaf's position, due to Labour's fear that the far more popular Kate Forbes could soon take over as SNP leader. So unionists are certainly in no position to try to question the credibility of the Yes lead.
I'll update this post with more details if I can find any.
"Settled will" - absolutely spot on.
ReplyDeleteConsidering all of the flak that has been fired at the SNP from several directions during the past year, it is quite anazing!
ReplyDeleteThe prospects of Independence (good, as long as we reach out positively to undecided and previous No voters) and the prospects for the SNP (bad and getting worst) are two very different things now.
DeleteVote for Independence; end the Union AND the SNP.
The rank and file need to use every path and every contact available to drive these findings home to our oh so comfortable 'leaders'.
ReplyDeleteThe clock towards a UK General Election is ticking as Sunak's very threadbare pants start to seriously unravel.
Adding to this, the new Redfield UK poll puts the SNP on 4 percent which means about 40 percent in Scotland
ReplyDeleteWith this evidence, the SNP must use the next election as a defacto indyref then, provided it’s the one and only point in their manifesto.
ReplyDeleteWhen over 50% of vote achieved, the separation from England can begin.
It's official, then: marching works.
ReplyDeleteJings! There's a James Kelly writing about this poll on The National's website. Hope it's the JK we all know and love and not the other one.
ReplyDeleteWherer? I get the National, don't see it. Saw an article by Hamish Morrison that could have been in the Telegraph but not James's
DeleteIt's on the website, but it didn't appear in the print edition.
DeleteRight I'll have another look.
DeleteThe issue of Independence has a life of its own much to the puzzlement of Unionists. The 2014 campaign opened the eyes of a lot of people to the realities of rule from Westminster. It is amazing that the SNP has not responded to the Independence - supporting population and done something (anything) to prepare for Independence. But - still we rise!
ReplyDeleteThanks for this information James. So frustrating that at the very least 50% of us want independence, yet the government and party "of independence" do nothing concrete to get it. How Scottish... to be shot in both feet by your own "team mates"
ReplyDeleteGreat article in the National SGP, glad to see you got another gig, should be a lot more from you there. You shoot straight from the hip, rather than saying what people want to hear. And your fundraiser should rocket ahead, another poll with inquisitive questions and another gig there. Anyways this caught my eye:
ReplyDelete"... but instead on their own personal faith that "the pack" of pollsters must be right and "the outliers" must be wrong."
It's good to see the issue of "outliers" being used to dismiss the findings being tackled. It's something perhaps Curtice is a bit of a villain for, and he should know better.
A poll having different results from the "normal" can indeed be right whereas the others are wrong, specially if they all use a questionable metric for fear of being different. It's in the actual nature of statistical sampling, and massaging of data to try to make it appear random but also representative of the population being sampled.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/23787929.scottish-poll-makes-ask-yes-lead-along/
Your mention in the National article about weighting by 2014 does make me wonder at what point it becomes totally untenable for pollsters to weight it that way. If pollsters were weighting today's polling by the 2015 general election result, they'd be laughed out of the room.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's not just about false recall. There are now people approaching their mid 20s who were too young to vote in 2014. And almost an entire generation at the other end of the spectrum who are no longer with us. Unionists might not accept that a political generation has passed. But it's high time the pollsters do.
In Genderal Elections it makes sense to have weighting adjust for respondents because people who vote for patry A usually but who are annoyed by something they have done may if asked at that moment say they will vote for party B. However come actual election time a significant proportion of those will nevertheless vote for the party they did before simply because the odds are that generally they agree with that party's policies.
DeletePolling companies use weightings to anticipate that phenomena.
However it does not make sense to use this same logic for Indyrefs. For a start, a good deal of those who have changed their mind are those who voted No to stay in Europe. Oops! And that eventuality is not going to change so the fact they are now Yes isn't going to change either. There are loads of other similar issues. Indyrefs are not a party political deal.
We all know what the settled will of the Scottish people is, and it certainly ain’t "Our Precious Union".
ReplyDeleteNowadays it’s only these YouGov polls conducted for Brit Nat newspapers that ever have No ahead.
Time to get over it and forget about this "Union" nonsense.
Well said. The most accurate polling company in the UK is Ipsos MORI and they usually have Yes ahead.
DeleteIndependence is normal.
DeleteAbsolutely. You only need to look at unionist supporters to see what happens when you depart from normality.
DeleteLOL, so true.
DeleteHarsh but fair!
DeleteYes, it's difficult to take the British Nationalist pollster YouGov seriously when more reputable companies like Ipsos UK and Find Out Now paint an entirely different picture.
DeleteTotally agree.
DeleteJust like the increasing numbers attending independence marches, the number of people posting comments on this site appears to be up substantially. Obviously a lot have given up on the "Union".
ReplyDeletePeople at long last coming to their senses.
That's a very shrewd observation.
DeletePersonally I've been very aware of the increasing numbers on marches. It's been remarkable.
DeleteIndependence always has been and always will be the settled will of the Scottish people.
ReplyDeleteOnly those gullible enough to believe polls by the unionist polling company YouGov think otherwise.
Very true.
Delete