Should Scotland be an independent country? (Survation / Diffley Partnership, 13th-24th August 2026)
Yes 52% (-)
No 48% (-)
This is the third Survation poll in a row to show a Yes majority, which looks pretty significant given that Survation haven't particularly been favourable for Yes in recent times. They had No in a clear lead last year, so what we're seeing is consistent with a relatively recent swing in favour of independence.
Scottish voting intentions for the next UK general election:
SNP 34%
Labour 19%
Reform UK 18%
Conservatives 11%
Liberal Democrats 8%
Greens 5%
Restore Britain 4%
The Westminster numbers pretty much snuff out any hope for Labour that the Burnham bounce has in itself been enough to get them back into the game in Scotland. The recent Find Out Now poll, which was the only other full-scale Scottish poll of the Burnham era to date, showed very similar numbers. While one poll could have been leading us wildly astray, it seems much less likely that two polls showing the same thing are both rogue polls. It's quite possible that Survation's numbers would put the SNP on course for a 2019-style landslide with more than three-quarters of the Scottish seats in the House of Commons. And remember that we're right in the middle of Burnham's natural honeymoon period at the moment - so if anything you'd expect things to improve for the SNP from here.
As far as the personal ratings for leading politicians are concerned, Burnham is ahead - but these are net ratings which subtract the percentage of respondents who are not satisfied with each politician from the percentage who are satisfied. That arguably gives Burnham an advantage over someone like John Swinney, who has had a much longer period of time to build up a minority group of voters who are unhappy with him. It doesn't necessarily mean that voters as a whole prefer Burnham to Swinney. As you may recall, Humza Yousaf had really poor net ratings during his time as First Minister but generally was still ahead of Anas Sarwar on the straight question "who would you prefer to be First Minister?" No such direct comparison will ever be made between Swinney and Burnham because they are not in competition with each other for the same political office, but the fact that the SNP are so far ahead of Labour on Westminster voting intentions in particular is not easily reconcilable with the belief that voters prefer Burnham to Swinney.
Perhaps offering some support for the famous Yes Minister scene suggesting that you can get any poll result you want depending on how you phrase the question, there is a supplemtary question in this poll which finds a majority in favour of the proposition that some government powers in Scotland should be held at UK level, which arguably contradicts the majority in favour of independence. However, the two results are perhaps just about consistent with each other if it can be assumed that respondents felt they were being asked "if Scotland remains in the UK, should the UK government have some powers in Scotland?
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Hey James, it's Lap. Did you get my email earlier?
ReplyDeleteHi Lap, yes I did, I'll reply as soon as I get a spare moment.
DeleteWith the unionist vote now split 5 ways, it would be pretty grim if the SNP didn’t have a big lead!
ReplyDeleteMorning, KC.
DeleteIsnt the fact "unionism" is factionalising not good.
ReplyDelete1.18 idiot comment!
ReplyDeleteWGD points out that Burnham has already reneged on two key promises, capping political donations and nationalising water companies in England. So soon won't be popular down south either.
ReplyDeleteBurnham is Starmer with better social skills. Reneged already on key promises and has no intention of privatising water companies, cutting fuel bills or cleaning up politics. The Trade Unions are already unhappy with him, and Farage is still a real danger. Thank goodness things are so good up here that we can focus on toilets and men in skirts. Thanks N S. Is Swinney back from his world cup jaunt yet?
ReplyDeleteSo KC tried to say it was only Find Out Now polls that showed a majority for independence yet as James states it is the " third Survation poll in a row to show a majority". Britnats lie and so does KC's Britnat pal who hides as an anon and likes to call me IFSy? This sneaky Britnat says my posts are copied from other bloggers. Nope it's all my own words and opinions unless I put them in quotes. As longer term readers of SGP will know I have at times quoted other bloggers/people and I make it clear that it is their words not mine.
ReplyDeleteFor example, here is grumpyscottishman commenting on the SNP leadership banning debate on an independence strategy put forward by members. It's nice to see some SNP members actually want to do something to get Scottish independence. The rest are just party people who are happy the SNP win an election.
Grumpy says:-
" TO SHUT DOWN DEBATE AGAIN - demonstrates to even the most fervent SNP members that the party is no longer an Independence Party, it is a UNIONIST party when all is said and done if they won't even allow members to debate strategy."
I agree that the SNP is a fake Independence Party and has been since 2014 but I disagree when he says it demonstrates to even the most fervent party that the SNP is no longer an Independence Party. Plenty of these SNP numpties will still claim it is THE party of independence. It won the election they will cry. They never ask themselves why the SNP vote has plummeted and why the membership has gone down from 125k to 50k.
The SNP leadership and the SNP numpties who have supported them over the last 12 years have betrayed Scotland and independence supporters. Another " parcel of rogues ."
Ach there's always Alba.......oh wait....
DeleteAch there is one of the numpties at 4.36pm I referred to.
DeleteYou forgot your other watchword "Nicophant".
DeleteIt looks like there will never be a de facto referendum as long as the current lot are in charge of the SNP. It looks like they plan to do nothing until we are all dead and the Proclaimers song will be changed to say SCOTLAND NO MORE! Never ending excuses for doing nothing on independence but expending plenty energy on trans type policies. The SNP now look like they have been infiltrated by Britnats AND Scottish Green bampots and the ordinary membership looked away and repeated a mantra to themselves of total obedience to the great Nicola and honest steady the ship John. Yousaf the Brief was just an aberration chosen by the same membership.
DeleteHow long does it take for people to realise they have been conned for 12 years - not 12 days or 12 weeks or 12 months but 12 years!!
there is something wrong with people like 5.13pm. Why should I say he is a nicophant? I have no knowledge to come to that conclusion but by your post 5.13 and 4.46 there is clear evidence you are both numpties if not the same numpty. Only simple minded people can take pleasure from those simple posts.
DeleteParcel of rogues? Good to see you trying to emulate me YIR2.
DeletezzzzzZz
DeleteAn encouraging independence poll.
ReplyDeleteHowever in my view, the time for real optimism will be when YouGov and Ipsos polls start to show regular Yes leads. Ipsos, of course, being the Gold Standard in polling.
Hi again, KC. Personally I think of Survation as the 'Blue Riband' pollster.
DeleteWell done you. Show mummy.
ReplyDeleteReally why vote for this bunch of nonentities. What’s the bloody point. Swinney get to **** and give the reins to someone who wants independence. The polls could show 100% yes and this shower would still sit on their hands and do sfa
ReplyDeleteIf my maths is right, Swinney was sworn in as FM on 20th May, so exactly 100 days later is Friday 28th August - today.
ReplyDeleteSo on the first day of his first 100 days, Swinney got the vote on the transfer of powers and forming a Section 30 Order, and on the 100th day he has published the draft Independence Referendum Bill.
So it seems to me that he has maybe actually done what was in his pre-election promise unless I'm missing something. And yet there seems to be not one single article anywhere pointing this out.
Meanwhile, what does this achieve, with Westminster apparently refusing the Section 30 Order, and Holyrood unable to even debate the Referendum Bill let alone vote on it?
Quite simple. Out in public view for the World to see is the Scottish Parliament and Government's attempt at Self-Determination totally and continually stymied (a good legal term) by the UK Parliament and Government. The internal route within the "mother" state of the UK to Self-Determination denied. If publishing the Bill and no powers transferred to enable the Bill is Day 0 of the denial, tomorrow 29th August is Day 1.
And Counting.
I am not expecting England's man in Scotland John Swinney to grow a pair of baws any day soon. Swinney needs to go and take Sturgeons useless Woke cabal with him.
ReplyDeleteAye sure. You don’t know what the word actually means.
ReplyDelete11.12 The word “Woke” has been manipulated and demonised by the right-wing and their media.
ReplyDeleteIt is widely known that the first use of the word ‘Woke’ was by Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly) in the song "Scottsboro Boys" in 1938, which included the line "In Alabama, be careful and stay woke". Its meaning was that the world, and specifically the Alabama of the 1930s, was filled with racists and that if you were there and Black you were being advised to stay awake to it. In other words, people are being lynched so stay awake out there.
Prior to this in the 1920s the Jamaican philosopher Marcus Garvey, exhorting members of the Black diaspora in America, Jamaica, and elsewhere to join the cause of Pan-Africanism, called on them to “Wake Up”.
In 1940, after finding out they were being paid less than their white counterparts, the leaders of a Black mine workers union in West Virginia that launched a strike against discriminatory pay stated, “We were asleep. But we will stay woke from now on.”
To some, woke is now a derisive stand-in for diversity, inclusion, empathy and, yes, Blackness. Michael Harriot, author of the book, Black AF History: The Unwhitewashed Story of America, explains that this kind of insidious takeover and flipping of Black vernacular to anti-Black pejorative has numerous parallels in America’s past and runs all the way up to present day.
“When you look at the long arc of history and America’s reaction to the request for Black liberation – every time Black people try to use a phrase or coin a phrase that symbolizes our desire for liberation, it will eventually become a cuss word to white people.”
it’s obviously easy to get people to demonize a word. With your uneducated use of the word ‘Woke’ you come across as being co opted by the far-right!