The Diffley difference: new poll tilts this election in the SNP's favour - and is the ELEVENTH poll in the last four months to show that Scotland would vote Yes to independence in a new referendum

Unlike our occasional commenter Declan, I'm not particularly given to punching the air upon seeing an opinion poll, but if I was ever going to do that, yesterday would have been the day.  There were only two polls last week and they effectively produced a split decision - the Find Out Now poll I commissioned for Scot Goes Pop was pretty favourable for the SNP and exceptionally favourable for the Greens, while the Survation poll was significantly less good for both parties, although at least it did still point to a pro-indy majority in the Scottish Parliament and a fifth successive term in office for the SNP.  As the Tories discovered in the 2017 general election, and as Labour discovered in 1970, there's always just a chance that the least favourable pollster will also turn out to be the most accurate.  So the only way we could really get any reassurance on that front was if there was another Survation poll showing a rosier picture - and amazingly that's exactly what happened yesterday.

The Diffley Partnership commissioned a Survation poll that began its fieldwork before the previous one even ended, and it's significantly better for the SNP on the constituency ballot.  The seats projection doesn't quite show them on course for an overall majority, but it does show them knocking on the door with 62 seats.

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot (Survation / Diffley Partnership, 17th-23rd April 2026):

SNP 38% (+3)

Reform UK 20% (-)

Labour 18% (-2)

Conservatives 12% (-1)

Liberal Democrats 10% (-)

Greens 2% (+1)

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:

SNP 29% (-)

Reform UK 19% (-)

Labour 17% (-)

Greens 12% (+1)

Conservatives 12% (-1)

Liberal Democrats 9% (+1)

One sense in which last week's Survation poll was actually very good was that it showed there would be a Yes majority in a new independence referendum - something that most Survation polls in recent years have not showed.  The Diffley poll demonstrates that was not a fluke by showing the Yes vote rising higher still.  Having checked the small print, it looks like a possible explanation could be that Survation have finally dropped the dubious practice of weighting by recalled vote from a referendum that took place over a decade ago - but I don't want to be too definite in saying that, because last week's poll apparently was still weighted by 2014 vote.  I'm guessing there may be an error in the methodological note on one of the two polls.

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 52% (+1)

No 48% (-1)

There have now been seventeen independence polls in this calendar year so far, ie. in the last four months, and *eleven* of them have shown a clear Yes majority.  The settled will klaxon is screeching tonight, and there are reports of it being heard as far away as Finland.

I was asked a specific question in the comments section of this blog the other night, so I just thought I'd take a moment to answer it - 

"James! You're an SNP member who isn't a slavish follower of the party line, so I'd be interested in your thoughts. We know that you oppose Swinney's approach of proclaiming an SNP majority the only way to get a referendum, but your objection has mostly been based on the unlikelihood of that being achieved."

To be clear, that wasn't the only reason for my objection, or even the main reason.  I was more worried about the precedent it would set - ie. if we weren't successful in this election, we'd then have lumbered ourselves in all future elections with the precedent of saying ourselves that we need to hit a target that, regardless of anyone's views of whether it's impossible or not, is certainly exceptionally difficult to reach.  I also didn't think the strategy was consistent with the principle of democratic self-determination.  As much as I'm an SNP member and want everyone to vote Both Votes SNP, I also don't think it's the business of any pro-independence party to try to place limits on how the Scottish people can exercise their right to self-determination, or to declare that there may be illegitimate or 'non-valid' ways of doing so.  If the Greens put independence in their manifesto, and if people vote Green, those votes still count.

Ever since the decision at conference was made, though, I've been repeatedly saying that all that really needs to happen is for John Swinney to soften his language before the election, and to make clear that although we're chasing a single-party overall majority as an ideal, a multi-party pro-indy majority would still constitute a mandate and would still be acted upon.  That does now seem to be happening to some extent, so I'm a lot more comfortable with where we are now than where we were last October.  Paul Hutcheon was fuming yesterday about Swinney 'shifting the goalposts', so it can only be a good thing.

"But recent polls suggest it's just about possible. So let's assume it is achieved. Do you think that would actually create any significant pressure on Westminster to concede? Or would they be able to dismiss it just as easily as they've always done?"

I think to break the logjam there's going to have to be some sort of 'wow' factor to the result, just as there was in 2011 - something that makes London commentators say "yeah, we didn't see that coming".  It could happen in several different ways - if the SNP win a higher vote share than expected, or if there is some sort of pro-indy 'supermajority', or if the SNP and Greens take first and second place respectively.  The Scot Goes Pop / Find Out Now poll suggested both of the last two scenarios might be on the cards.  Remember also that the London commentariat are far more obsessed with the Starmer soap opera than they are with the constitutional fate of Scotland, so if Labour do poorly enough in the Holyrood election to play a role in Starmer resigning - for example if they finish fifth in terms of seats, as the Scot Goes Pop poll suggested they might - that could also make people sit up and take notice.

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If you're finding the new Scot Goes Pop poll useful, please check out our new 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.

Alex Cole-Hamilton really didn't want to answer the question about Prestwick Airport.

Anas Sarwar really didn't want to answer the question about whether he would refuse a peerage.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) April 28, 2026

What does anyone actually need six boats for? Does he have one in each continent, or something like that?

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) April 28, 2026

If the SNP had no new policies, the cry would be "You're knackered! You've run out of ideas!"

But because they do have new policies, it's "Why didn't you do these things nineteen years ago?"

You can't have it both ways, chaps.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) April 28, 2026

EXCLUSIVE SCOT GOES POP / FIND OUT NOW POLL: By a more than 2-1 majority, the Scottish public reject Wes Streeting's arrogance, and insist that Scottish voters - rather than the UK Government - should decide on whether an independence referendum is held. Even *Labour voters* decisively agree that Streeting is wrong.

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.

 

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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

Join me on YouTube at NOON as Wes "they're not having one!" Streeting faces his HIGH NOON in the Scot Goes Pop / Find Out Now poll: do the Scottish public agree with Streeting that the UK Government gets to decide whether an independence referendum is held, or do they think voters should decide in the Scottish Parliament election next week?

If you join the waiting zone, the video should automatically start playing when the clock strikes 12 for Streeting's HIGH NOON.  While you're waiting for the results, 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.

It will soon be HIGH NOON for Wes Streeting in the Scot Goes Pop / Find Out Now poll

My latest constituency profile for The National is John Swinney's seat of Perthshire North.

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If you've finding Scot Goes Pop poll useful, please consider donating to our new polling fundraiser, which you can find HERE.

Hammerblow for Brit Nat propaganda outfit "Scotland In Union" as their regular pollsters Survation show a clear pro-independence majority, right in the middle of the Holyrood election campaign

As I said the other day, there's still more to come from the new Scot Goes Pop / Find Out Now poll - I had been planning to release another result on Friday, and then that slipped to yesterday, and somehow it didn't happen today either.  I think I probably just needed some downtime, because the mid-part of the week was a bit manic, but tomorrow may well be the day.  In the meantime, I had been expecting to be able to bring you the weekend polls that would usually come along at this stage of an election campaign, but amazingly there don't seem to be any.  It's probably just as well that I and a certain Green Belt "Project" went ahead and commissioned our own polls last week, otherwise there'd be no up-to-date information at all about the state of play in the Holyrood race, although unfortunately those two polls muddied the waters a bit, because despite having almost identical fieldwork dates, they contradicted each other in several respects.

The Survation poll was much less favourable for the Greens (somewhat ironically, given who commissioned it), and by implication it was also less good for the SNP, who didn't receive a boost on the constituency ballot in spite of the Greens being excluded as an option in the constituencies where they aren't standing.  But one sense in which the two polls are in complete accord is in showing a rosy picture for independence - and that's highly significant, because Survation, in total contrast to Find Out Now, do not have a long track record of showing Yes majorities.  Their previous poll at the start of the year was a dead heat, and prior to that they had produced several polls in a row showing a No lead.  They have now become the SEVENTH different pollster to show a Yes lead at some point in this calendar year so far, and it's only April.  So there's no point in our old friend KC droning on about how it's only ever Ipsos and Find Out Now who show a Yes lead - those days are over.  Of the sixteen independence polls in 2026, this is the TENTH to show a pro-indy majority.

Should Scotland be an independent country?  (Survation, 14th-21st April 2026)

Yes 51% (+1)

No 49% (-1)

It also shouldn't go unnoticed, incidentally, that Survation are the pollsters who conduct the regular series of propaganda polls for Scotland In Union, which replace the standard independence question with a leading question, and which always give the impression that opposition to independence is stronger than it actually is.  It's something of a blow for Scotland In Union, I'd have thought, that this of all moments is when Survation have suddenly shown a Yes majority in a credible poll with a credible question.

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My latest two constituency profiles for the national are the Orkney Islands and Paisley.

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If you've found the latest Scot Goes Pop poll useful, please consider donating to our new polling fundraiser, which you can find HERE.

More thoughts on the prospects for an SNP overall majority in the light of the Scot Goes Pop / Find Out Now poll

Just to allow you to make up your own minds, I thought I'd draw your attention to the fact that the Stats for Lefties account picked up on the Scot Goes Pop / Find Out Now poll yesterday, and produced their own seats projection from it that is radically different from the one I published on Wednesday night:

SNP 68

Greens 18

Reform UK 15

Liberal Democrats 10

Labour 10

Conservatives 8

That would be a single-party SNP overall majority, whereas my projection has the SNP six seats short of a majority on 59.  I've been saying for months (and I really have been saying this for months) that the Stats for Lefties projection model always seems to be overly optimistic for the SNP, and often produces an overall majority when other models do not.  During the debate in the autumn about whether the SNP should adopt the target of an overall majority, I was very concerned that some of the proponents of the idea were using the Stats for Lefties projections to give the impression that a majority was a lot more likely than was really the case.

However, there are two caveats this time around.  As I said myself the other night, in the real world the Scot Goes Pop / Find Out Now poll would probably produce about 63 SNP seats (almost a majority but not quite), because most of the 12% of people who said they would vote Green on the constituency ballot will not be able to do so, and a lot of them will actually vote SNP.  So if the Stats for Lefties projection is making some sort of common sense adjustment to the constituency numbers to take account of that, it might not be quite so far out.  

And secondly, even without any adjustment, the constituency vote shares from the poll are actually better for the SNP than the Find Out Now MRP poll from last month.  The MRP poll had the SNP on 34% of the vote and gave them a 16-point lead over the second placed party (Labour).  The Scot Goes Pop poll has the SNP on 35% and gives them a 19-point lead over the second-placed party (Reform UK).  The MRP poll, once the individual constituency-level projections were totted up, gave the SNP an overall majority - it was surprising that it showed that, but it did.  So if you think the projection method that was used in that MRP poll was sound, then yes, the Scot Goes Pop poll probably would point to an SNP overall majority, even before you take into account the issue of the Greens on the constituency ballot.

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Atlas-branded leaflets are being distributed in the Cumbernauld & Kilsyth constituency pushing blatantly far-right policies and conspiracy theories: will Tommy Sheridan and the others finally disown this?

I was astounded at the leaflet I received through the door of my Cumbernauld home yesterday from the notorious Dr Alan McManus, who has regularly spoken at far-right rallies organised by the holocaust denier and Brit Nat Ultra Alistair McConnachie (of "Independent Green Voice" fame), and who is standing in the Cumbernauld & Kilsyth constituency on a joint ticket of his own "Sovereignty" party and Barrhead Boy's "Alliance to Liberate Scotland" party (aka "the Atlas").  The leaflet is prominently branded with the logos of both parties, and also with the Atlas slogan: "Independence.  Nothing Else.  Nothing Less."  With no apparent sense of irony, one side of the leaflet then goes on to set out a variety of extremely controversial - and in some cases downright offensive - policies that have got absolutely nothing whatever to do with independence, and which on the basis of the branding it's reasonable to conclude the entirety of Atlas must endorse.  Tommy Sheridan, Eva Comrie, Craig Murray, Marjorie Thompson, et al: this guy claims to be speaking on behalf of you.  Do you disown him?  Do you disown these policies he's putting out under the branding of your party?

Alliance to Liberate Scotland policies, as revealed by Dr Alan McManus in his election leaflets:

* That there should NEVER be another lockdown.  That's right, even if a deadly and highly infectious pathogen (potentially one with a far higher mortality rate than Covid) is wiping out the population, we shouldn't take even temporary steps to check its progress and to save lives.

* The existence of vaccines against Covid is a problem that must be "tackled" (in some unspecified way, but we can probably guess).

* Immigration is implied to be a leading cause of "predatory" behaviour by men, and *deportation* is proposed as a solution.

* Climate change is a "scam" and all action to tackle it should be discontinued.

* Cities and towns in which it is possible to walk to useful places within fifteen minutes are EVIL.

* Non-white people (the euphemism used is people who are not "indigenous") should be discriminated against in the provision of housing.

Great company you're keeping there, Tommy and the gang.  When you get round to telling us whether you disown McManus and his policies, could you also maybe talk us through the meaning, as you see it, of the phrase "Independence, nothing else"?  Because I'm beginning to think this is some kind of sister language to English in which the words mean the exact polar opposite of what we think they mean.

As so many people have pointed out, the most logical explanation for what is happening would appear to be that the far-right nutters in Sovereignty agreed to bankroll the Atlas campaign, and that the Atlas crew knowingly did a deal with the devil simply so they could contest this election.  One might almost say that Atlas has lost its moral compass.

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SCOT GOES POP / FIND OUT NOW POLL: There's still more to come from our new exclusive poll, although it won't be tonight.  In the meantime, though, if you've been finding the poll useful and would like another one at some point in the future, please check out the new Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser.

EXCLUSIVE SCOT GOES POP / FIND OUT NOW POLL: SNP and Greens on course to win nearly TWO-THIRDS of Holyrood seats and a pro-independence SUPERMAJORITY - SNP overall majority still a possibility - Labour slump to dismal FIFTH place in the seats projection

A little earlier tonight, I revealed the Scottish Parliament voting intention results from the new Scot Goes Pop / Find Out Now poll in a video on my YouTube channel, but as promised, here are the results in text form...

Scot Goes Pop / Find Out Now poll, 15th-20th April 2026

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:

SNP 35% (+1)

Reform UK 16% (+1)

Labour 14% (-4)

Greens 12% (+3)

Liberal Democrats 10% (-)

Conservatives 9% (-)

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:

SNP 27% (-2)

Greens 20% (+6)

Reform UK 17% (+1)

Labour 12% (-5)

Liberal Democrats 11% (+1)

Conservatives 10% (-)

Seats projection:

SNP 59

Greens 23

Reform UK 17

Liberal Democrats 11

Labour 10

Conservatives 9

PRO-INDEPENDENCE PARTIES: 82 SEATS

ANTI-INDEPENDENCE PARTIES: 47 SEATS

Just a reminder that the sample size was 1002, and the percentage changes are measured from Find Out Now's recent MRP poll commissioned by The National.

As stated in the video, I can't find a higher Green list vote share in any poll from any polling firm over the last few years, so it's certainly a high watermark in recent times and may be an all-time high, but I'm not sure on the latter point.  To address a question that I know will be raised, Professor John Curtice cast doubt on Find Out Now's list results a few months ago, because he felt the wording of their list question might be artificially boosting support for smaller pro-independence parties.  They took that feedback on board and replaced the question with a new wording that immediately reduced support for the smaller parties.  

When I saw such a surprisingly high Green vote in this poll, I did doublecheck to make sure Find Out Now were still using the new version of the question, and indeed they were, so to the best of my knowledge there's no particular reason to be sceptical about the results - apart of course from the fact that any poll can potentially be an outlier, and some might argue that the Green list result in this poll has 'outlier' written all over it because it isn't in line with trends shown by most other polling firms recently.  But keep an open mind until we see the next batch of polls: there's always just a chance that this is the early evidence of a new trend.

All polling firms have house effects, but trends are often more consistent across the polling industry, and I must say it's very hard to square these results with the propaganda message we've been hearing from Labour about their vote firming up on the doorsteps.  Similarly the Tories claim to be faring surprisingly well - but if so, shouldn't there at least be some sign of that in this poll?!

In case you're wondering about the quirk of Labour only being in fifth place in the seats projection when they're in third place on the constituency ballot and fourth place on the list, the main explanation for that is the likelihood that the Lib Dems will win more constituency seats than Labour.

It's really important to remember that the seats projection is taking the constituency vote shares seriously, and is thus likely to be underestimating the SNP, who I reckon would be on 63 seats - and thus only just short of an overall majority - if you make a common sense adjustment to reassign a slim majority of Green constituency voters to the SNP in the seats where the Greens are not standing.  But it's fair to say the main story of this poll is about the prospect of a two-party pro-independence supermajority of the type that Alex Salmond suggested in 2021 might break the logjam (albeit of course that supermajority, if it happens, will not consist of the parties he had in mind).  It's also about the prospect of pro-independence parties filling the roles of both the government and the main opposition party - which is similarly an outcome that it has been suggested in the past might be a staging-post towards independence.

There's still more to come from this poll in the days to come, but in the meantime please check out the new Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser - if you have a few pounds to spare it would be very much appreciated, and might inch us closer to being able to run another poll at some point in the future.

EXCLUSIVE SCOT GOES POP / FIND OUT NOW POLL: Join me at 11.50pm on YouTube to hear the release of the Scottish Parliament voting intention numbers

If you join the waiting zone, the video above should automatically start playing at 11.50pm.  Just like last night, I'll be posting the poll results on this blog in text form later on for the video-phobic.

In the meantime, please check out the new Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser, and if you feel able to chip in a few pounds, that would be very much appreciated.

It's GO! The Scottish Parliament voting intention numbers from the new Scot Goes Pop poll will be released TONIGHT

 

While you're waiting for the thrills and spills of later tonight, please check out the new Scot Goes Pop polling fundraiser HERE.