Are the results of independence polls being deliberately manipulated by organised unionist infiltrators in polling panels?

As explained in the previous blogpost, my main concern about the data tables from the Survation / Scotland in Union propaganda poll is that they show beyond all reasonable doubt that some respondents misunderstood the question (as they were presumably intended to) and said that they want Scotland to "remain in the United Kingdom" when in fact they want Scotland to become an independent country.  The section which allowed respondents to give reasons in their own words for "switching from Yes to Remain" not only produced declarations of outright support for independence, but also a number of comments about wanting to be in the EU, which implies that some people didn't read the question carefully enough and assumed they were being asked the Remain/Leave question from the EU referendum.  Accordingly, the 60-40 split in favour of "remain in the UK" in the headline results of the poll does not have any credibility.

However, someone raised an additional issue in the comments section of the blogpost, and suggested that even some of the genuinely anti-independence comments from "switchers" in the poll looked a bit suspicious.  Having thought about that, I think there may be something in it.  The two potential reasons for suspicion are: a) some of the responses are very similar to each other, which might suggest a degree of coordination, and b) some of them are a bit too enthusiastic about the "we are better together, the UK is simply wonderful" message.  I know there's such a thing as the zeal of the convert, but I'm a bit sceptical about whether people who actually voted for independence in 2014 and have since changed their minds would be quite so gung-ho in favour of the exact messaging they once rejected.  I'd have expected them to have quite nuanced reasons and to sound a bit more conflicted.

Here are some more examples of what the purported "Yes to Remain switchers" gave as their reasons:

"Stronger together"

"Stronger altogether"

"We are better as a nation"

"because I believe that togetherness will make a country"

"we are great britain if we remain together"

"As I think we are better together"

We should just be grateful that none of them broke into the chorus of Lord Offord's God-awful 2014 anthem "Why build another wall?  Oh why build another wa-a-a-all?"

The point is of course that if a dyed-in-the-wool lifelong unionist lies through their teeth and tells a polling company that they voted Yes in 2014, the weightings may ensure that their anti-independence responses are magnified, thus potentially distorting the headline results.  This sort of problem has been documented before - around twenty years ago, the then editor of Political Betting / Stormfront Lite openly admitted that he was a member of the YouGov polling panel and that he had falsely claimed to be a past Labour voter.  To their credit, YouGov then unceremoniously banned him, but they would have no way of knowing whether that was an isolated case or whether distortions are occurring on a bigger scale as a result of organised infiltration of the panel.  These Survation responses suggest that the latter is a real possibility, at least in Scottish independence polling.

And remember the only reason the system is open to abuse in this way is because some polling firms still insist on weighting their results by recalled 2014 vote.  They shouldn't be doing that anyway after twelve long years because of the danger of false recall, and going forward I'd suggest we should regard any poll that applies these weightings as potentially suspect for more than one reason.

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I've received yet another pleasantry from the Liberate Scotland supreme leader Barrhead Boy - 

"Kelly is just a nasty wee man with a huge chip on his shoulder and a desire to be a ‘name’ in the movement."

Blimey.  I'm struggling to imagine a more clear-cut example of projection than that.  It's not exactly me who has set up his own vanity fringe party to pursue a destructive vendetta against the SNP, or who ludicrously imagines himself to be Alex Salmond's de facto successor as "The Boss", or who delusionally boasts about being on the cusp of "liberating the nation".  And doing all of that from luxury pads in Barcelona and the United Arab Emirates is just *chef's kiss*.

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My latest Holyrood constituency profiles for The National are Dumbarton, Dumfriesshire, and Dundee City East.