Labour's UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting was recently asked in an LBC interview whether there would be an independence referendum if the Scottish people vote in favour of holding one at the Scottish Parliament election next week. There were numerous ways he could have answered: he could have waffled and said "well, let's wait and see the result before taking a view" or "I'm confident that the Scottish people will make the right decision" or the old favourite "I'm not going to sit here and deal in hypotheticals". But instead he came right out and baldly said "they're not having" a referendum irrespective of the result of the referendum - and the contemptuous "they" in the context of the question could only have referred to the Scottish people themselves, rather than to the Scottish Government or the SNP. When pressed on how the Scottish people could get a referendum if they want one (presumably the interviewer was naive enough to assume there must be some sort of mechanism in a democracy), Streeting doubled down and said "they're not having one" and that they have no way of getting one, because the British government has decided and what the voters want doesn't matter.
I mean, "muscular unionism" is one thing, but there comes a point where you're just completely jumping the shark and openly taunting Scottish voters that they do not live in a democracy, and that they do not live in a voluntary union, and that the UK is their prison, and that Streeting, Starmer and the others are their jailers. Well, Streeting may think it's possible for him to stop the Scottish people from voting on certain subjects, but at least as of this moment he does not yet have the power to prevent them being asked for their views in opinion polls. So I thought it was not unreasonable to use the new Scot Goes Pop / Find Out Now poll to ask for their immediate verdict on Streeting's outburst. Do they agree with him that it's for the UK Government to decide whether Scotland can vote on independence in a referendum, or do they instead believe that Scottish voters should decide in next week's election?
As you may have seen, I've already released the result in a video on my YouTube channel, but here it is in text format:
Scot Goes Pop / Find Out Now poll (15th-20th April 2026, sample size: 1002)
John Swinney has said if the SNP wins a majority in the upcoming Scottish Parliament election this would act as a mandate for an independence referendum. Meanwhile Wes Streeting (UK Government minister) has said "they're not having one" and "we are not going to introduce chaos into the UK by having an independence referendum. Absolutely not".
Who should decide whether or not a Scottish independence referendum takes place in the future?
The UK Government should decide: 24%
Scottish voters should decide (such as at the Scottish Parliament election taking place on 7th May): 53%
Don't Know: 23%
The result is not remotely surprising, but its emphatic nature does send an incredibly powerful message to Streeting, to the rest of the Labour UK Government, and indeed to the wider London establishment. The margin is more than 2-1, and if Don't Knows are removed it works out at roughly 69% for 'Scottish voters should decide' and 31% for 'the UK Goverment should decide'.
Particularly important is the fact that people who actually voted Labour in the 2024 general election take exactly the same view as the wider sample: 49% think the Scottish people should decide and only 35% agree with Streeting that the British government should decide. If Labour do as badly in this election as we think they might (the seats projection from this poll has them in just FIFTH place), there's going to be a lot of soul-searching about how they can reassemble the 35% coalition of support that proved just about enough to win them a majority of Scottish seats in 2024, and questions will surely be asked about whether that will ever be possible if people like Streeting continue to stick two fingers up at his own voters' belief in the principle of self-determination. A substantial minority of the Labour voters in 2024 were independence supporters, but support for the idea that Scotland itself should make the decision clearly goes much further than that.
There is no real gender gap in the poll, except for the fact that women are much more likely to say "Don't Know". 56% of men and 50% of women say the decision should be for Scottish voters. Unsurprisingly, younger voters are much more decisively in favour of self-determination than older voters, although even among 55-64 year olds (an age group that returned a No majority on the standard independence question), there is a 50% to 29% margin in favour of Scottish voters being able to decide. Only among over-65s is there a plurality in favour of the UK government deciding, and that plurality is very narrow indeed.
Every single one of the eight electoral regions is in favour of Scottish voters making the choice, with the biggest majority in Lothian (59% to 16%). And remarkably there is near-*unanimity* among people who voted SNP and Green at the 2024 general election - 94% of Green voters and 95% of SNP voters say that it's a matter for the Scottish people rather than for Streeting and UK ministers. Also intriguing is that quite a substantial minority of Reform UK voters (34%) are in favour of self-determination.
* * *
If you're finding this poll useful, please check out the new Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser, and if you're able to chuck in a few pounds it would be much appreciated - it might help us to run another poll in the future.
Now that the taboo has been broken of interviewees pointing out the elephant in the room live on air, I think Ed Balls is going to have to do a little bit better than "yeah, I was a Labour Cabinet minister but that was YEARS AGO" and "the Foreign Secretary is ONLY MY WIFE". https://t.co/PXvYP3DnpT
— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) April 27, 2026
Swinney:
ReplyDelete"The parliament chosen by the people of Scotland, will have the chance to represent the democratic will of the people of Scotland.
"Within the first hundred days, we will publish the draft referendum bill.
"We propose that the question, as in 2014, is: ‘Should Scotland be an independent country? Yes or No.’
"And we will convene a constitutional convention to help inform the Independence Referendum Bill and start to shape the draft constitution for an independent Scotland."
Okey dokey, the SNP get both my votes.
Good grief, my cut and paste totally cut the important bit from Swinney:
Delete"So I can confirm today that on the first sitting day after the appointment of the new government, we will bring forward a vote of the Scottish Parliament to approve the development of a Section 30 Order to give Scotland the power to hold an independence referendum."
We do not live in a democracy in Scotland. Democracy is only for England.
ReplyDeleteand the Falkland Islands according to Starmer!
ReplyDeleteNeither according to the great leader Fuhrer Trump. I hear they have wind turbine in the Falklands as well. They set the Yoons off every time.
DeleteBalls fat angry over fed face is such a giveaway. Raging at being called out. Feck off Balls. The mock indignation from charlatans like you wore thin long long ago.
ReplyDeleteWes (private health care money in back pocket) Streeting? That Wes Streeting? Little better than grave robbing in my book.
ReplyDeleteI will be voting SNP Constituency, Green list. It is best for my location. It will almost certainly result in one Constituency and one list seat for Indy parties. Please do the same if greens are popular in your area. Swinney’s crazy policy on only SNP votes/seats counting will, as I stated months ago, cost us dear. And no, it would be no different if I had given both votes to SNP, so spare me that nonsense. If anything, it would mean less Indy seats overall. This promise today by Swinney shows that he himself now realises the error he made. It’s too little too late. There was never going to be an SNP majority, but ironically there is going to be a good Indy parties (plural) majority. Well done J S.
ReplyDelete