Scot Goes Popcast with guest Ellen Höfer of EU Citizens for an Independent Scotland

For Episode 4 of the Scot Goes Popcast, I was joined by Ellen Höfer, the creative director of EU Citizens for an Independent Scotland.  Topics we discussed include...

* The new Opinium poll showing Yes ahead by 51% to 49%.

* The threat of deportation and a 'hostile environment' hanging over EU citizens if they don't sign up for settled status.

* What we know and what we don't know about how EU citizens voted in the 2014 indyref, and how they would vote in a second referendum.

* Why EU Citizens for an Independent Scotland didn't actually want to stop Brexit.

* The legislation that has extended the electoral franchise in Scotland to all residents regardless of nationality, and to some prisoners.

* Whether Nicola Sturgeon should resign if she is adjudged to have broken the ministerial code.

* Why Ellen feels the hashtag #IStandWithNicola is totally inappropriate.

* Why Ellen left the Scottish Green Party last year, and why she doesn't expect to be involved in party politics again.

If you run into any problems with the embedded player below, the direct link to the podcast is HERE.

James Kelly · Scot Goes Popcast Episode 4: Ellen Höfer

You can also catch up with earlier episodes of the Popcast - 

Episode 1: Yvonne Ridley 

Episode 2: Tim Rideout 

Episode 3: Denise Findlay 

 

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Click here for the 2021 Scot Goes Pop Fundraiser.

More about the Yes majority in the new Opinium poll

I have a short piece on The National's website about the new Opinium poll which has Yes ahead by 51% to 49% - you can read it HERE.  When I wrote it yesterday I included a couple of paragraphs about the findings from the poll on the Royal Family, which were probably trimmed because of space constraints.  So for your delectation and delight, I'll post them here - 

Perhaps the most stunning finding of the poll is that respondents are split down the middle over whether an independent Scotland should become a republic or retain the monarchy.  Past polls have tended to suggest that, although Scotland is cooler towards the royals than other parts of the UK, there was still a significant pro-monarchy majority.  One reason for the change could be the revelations in the recent Harry and Meghan interview, although it's also likely that the question wording played a part.  Asking respondents to think specifically about what should happen after independence may have teased out that some people who are sympathetic towards the monarchy nevertheless feel it would be logical for an independent Scotland to make a fresh start and find a homegrown Head of State.

That said, the SNP's soft pro-monarchy stance may still be electorally smart.  Republican voters are unlikely to refuse to back independence just because the monarchy is being kept, but the issue could well be a dealbreaker for some of the substantial minority of Yes voters (30% according to the poll) who want the royals to stay.  

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I received an email this morning (and it genuinely was only one email) from someone who was rather gratuitously going out of his way to inform me that he wasn't going to contribute to the Scot Goes Pop fundraiser because he didn't like the fact that I've made supportive comments about Alex Salmond.  This, of course, is one of the unavoidable hazards of crowdfunding a blog - some people will always see it as an opportunity to say "how DARE you expect me to hand over money when you haven't said exactly what I want you to say on subject X or Y". The reality is that I'm not expecting any individual to hand over money.  All I'm doing is putting the fundraiser out to the world and saying "if you like the blog and find it interesting and useful, you can help to keep it going if you wish". But if you don't like the blog and don't find it useful, or are uncomfortable with supporting it for any reason, of course I wouldn't expect you to donate - that would be silly.  By the same token, though, it would be wrong of me to say I'm going to change my views or self-censor because people will refuse to donate if I don't.  If fundraisers are having that kind of distorting effect, then it's hardly worth the bother, because you're not getting a truly independent alternative media written by people who can speak the truth as they see it without fear or favour.

In any case, my position on the current controversy is reasonably nuanced, and has been wrongly caricatured by both sides.  I am indeed supportive of Alex Salmond, and I think it's to be greatly regretted that the Scottish Government weren't more respectful of the jury's verdict.  I also think we'd be in a much better place now if Mr Salmond had been encouraged and welcomed back into the SNP fold.  However I do not think Nicola Sturgeon should resign, and I've made that abundantly clear.  I think it would be positively harmful to the independence cause if she was forced to go.

I've said that I would back an Alex Salmond list party if one was formed - but that would still entail voting SNP on the constituency ballot.  And I've also said that I'll be giving both votes to the SNP if there's no Salmond party, which presumably by now is the most likely scenario.

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I'll have a treat for you later tonight - a few hours ago I recorded a podcast with Ellen Höfer of EU Citizens for an Independent Scotland, so check back later for that.

Drama as new Opinium poll shows majority for an independent Scotland

The lesson for unionists is be careful what you gloat about.  It's no time at all since they were rejoicing that the run of Yes-majority polls had come to an end, and just yesterday Ruth Davidson was boasting (on highly dubious grounds, incidentally) that the unionists now had their own unbroken sequence of six polls showing opposition to independence.  But the wheels of fate don't stop turning for anyone - that little run is now over, courtesy of a new Opinium poll for Sky News.

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 51%

No 49%

To the best of my recollection this is the first Opinium poll on independence since the 2014 referendum, so it's not possible to give percentage changes, or to draw any conclusions from Opinium's track record as either a Yes-friendly or No-friendly pollster.  However, the hope must be that these numbers mean that the drop in support for independence has now stabilised, or even that there has been a little bounceback.  Certainly the unionist parties were keen to give the impression that the last year was just a weird aberration and that once No was back in the lead it would stay there permanently.  It appears that won't be the case, and it really is anyone's guess whether the next poll will show a Yes lead, a No lead, or an even split.

I have to raise at least one eyebrow at the reporting priorities of Sky News in all this.  There are two main stories in their poll - one is a Yes majority breaking the sequence of No leads, and the other is that the SNP are projected to fall slightly short of an overall majority.  Sky have chosen to headline the latter, and to treat the former as a minor detail.  I can't help feeling that if the poll had shown a No majority and had broken a sequence of Yes leads, they would have magically decided that the independence numbers were the newsworthy part.

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot voting intentions:

SNP 46%

Conservatives 24%

Labour 20%

Liberal Democrats 6%

Greens 4%

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot voting intentions:

SNP 42%

Conservatives 22%

Labour 19%

Greens 7%

Liberal Democrats 5%

Seats projection (with changes since 2016 election): SNP 64 (+1), Conservatives 29 (-2), Labour 24 (-), Greens 7 (+1), Liberal Democrats 5 (-)

SNP: 64 seats

All others: 65 seats 

SNP SHORT OF OVERALL MAJORITY BY 1 SEAT

Pro-independence parties: 71 seats (55.0%)

Anti-independence parties: 58 seats (45.0%)

PRO-INDEPENDENCE MAJORITY OF 13 SEATS

More details and analysis to follow shortly...

Two videos explaining how the Scottish Parliament voting system works (and how it doesn't work)

I did make exactly those points in 2016 and I was proved right. I said we couldn't possibly know, as you were specifically claiming, that the SNP would win at least 65 constituency seats. They didn't - they won 59, and because they didn't have enough list votes, no majority.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 16, 2021

I'm hoping not to get caught in the same trap I fell into in 2011 and 2016 when I spent the last few weeks before polling day doing little else but countering disinformation about the voting system.  To save time, and as they say on Blue Peter, here's something I made earlier.  Two videos, in fact.  The first is a film I made with Phantom Power in 2016 which explains the Holyrood voting system in detail, sets out the theory that it can be 'hacked' by voting strategically on the list, and then explains why that theory is largely bogus.  The second is a livestream debate I had on the subject with Tommy Sheridan, also in 2016.  A number of people were kind enough to say at the time that I had either won the debate or that it was a score draw, which is quite something when you consider what a formidable debater Tommy is - although, to be fair, he may have been going easy on a fellow Yes supporter, and I think his main problem was that his basic argument wasn't particularly convincing.  Even the finest debater can only do so much with such thin material.

To anticipate the objection that is always raised at this point, no I have not contradicted myself by saying I would get behind an Alex Salmond-led list party, if one were to be formed.  The point is that I wouldn't be doing that to 'game the system' - I would simply be voting for my first choice party on the more important list vote, which is exactly the way the system is supposed to be used.  That said, Alex Salmond is the one person who might actually be capable of successfully gaming the system.  Why?  Because, as stated in the videos, for a tactical push on the list to work, you'd effectively need a mind control ray - you'd need implausibly large numbers of people doing exactly what you want them to do by voting for the SNP on the constituency ballot and then switching to a Party X on the list.  Alex Salmond would be able to produce that effect due to the trust and loyalty gained from his twenty years at the helm of the SNP - he'd be able to convince a substantial minority of SNP voters that 'SNP constituency, Salmond party list' is a natural extension of their usual partisan choice.

Also of interest may be this email exchange I had with the editor of Bella Caledonia in 2016, which is a reminder that although the voting system doesn't change, the claims people make about it change easily with the political weather.  Five years ago, Bella was pushing for tactical voting on the list and Wings was saying that it was a 'mug's game' - but in 2019 they magically swapped positions when Stuart started talking about setting up a Wings party.

With Craig Murray as a candidate, AFI may be winning the AFI v ISP 'elimination heat'

As you may have seen on social media last night, the list-only pro-independence party Action for Independence has unveiled Craig Murray as a candidate.  In my view this is a potentially significant moment, because Craig is a relatively well known public figure - apart from his past life as a senior diplomat and a whistleblower, he arguably writes the most-read Scottish politics blog, exceeding the readership of even Wings Over Scotland (although there's always the problem of definition, because Craig writes about global topics and therefore has a more international audience).  I'm not sure off the top of my head whether Tommy Sheridan is planning to personally stand for AFI, but I would imagine there's a chance of that, and if so, AFI can now boast two well-known candidates, which is two more than their rivals ISP will be fielding.  So at the very least, it's starting to look like AFI are coming out on top in the AFI v ISP 'elimination heat', and may end up being the more credible option for Yes supporters who don't want to vote SNP on the list for a variety of reasons.  

The problem is, of course, that AFI might generate just enough momentum to get them to 2% or 3% of the list vote, but no further.  If that happens, it would be the worst of all worlds, because it probably wouldn't be enough to win seats, but it would be enough to cause harm to larger parties that actually do have a chance of winning list seats - ie. the SNP, the Greens, and possibly the independent Andy Wightman.  However, we'll see.  There's always the possibility of a snowball effect, with other big names crossing over to AFI in the wake of Craig's decision, and if that happens it's still possible that we might end up with a credible list party that can do good rather than harm - ie. that can actually win seats and potentially use its leverage in the Scottish Parliament to coax a reluctant SNP leadership towards Plan B.

But what I said the other day still applies - we need to jump decisively one way or the other on the list vote.  We either need a list party with enough support to win seats, or we need to wholeheartedly get behind the SNP (or the Greens) on the list.  Either is fine, but what we mustn't do is fall between two stools.   

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We in the bloggers' union were beside ourselves with excitement on Thursday, because my fellow blogger Caron Lindsay was the Liberal Democrat candidate in the Livingston South by-election.  For the uninitiated, Caron is the person who would have been editor of Pravda if the Soviet Union had been a Liberal Democrat dictatorship.  But there's no sign of the revolution happening any time soon in Livingston (or at least not that sort of revolution), because the SNP won with an increased share of the vote, and with the Lib Dems limping home in a distant sixth place.

Livingston South by-election result:

SNP 43.9% (+3.0) 

Labour 24.6% (-10.9) 

Conservatives 17.6% (-1.8) 

Independent 5.9% (n/a) 

Greens 4.2% (+1.7) 

Liberal Democrats 3.3% (+1.5) 

UKIP 0.5% (n/a)

There was also a big increase in the SNP share of the vote in the Leaderdale and Melrose by-election - and indeed a net swing from the Tories to the SNP.  However, you wouldn't have got that impression if you'd read the hysterical reporting of a "Conservative GAIN from the SNP".  We've really got to find better vocabulary for dealing with the situation that frequently arises in STV by-elections where a party "gains" a seat in spite of having been well ahead in the popular vote in the ward last time around.  It's particularly inaccurate to say, as Britain Elects did, "Conservatives GAIN Leaderdale and Melrose from SNP", because that implies the SNP previously "held the ward".  They didn't - they held one seat out of three on the ward, and were miles behind the Tories on the popular vote.

What we should probably say in cases like this is "Party A picked up the seat on the ward left vacant by the resignation/death of Councillor X from Party B".

The choice in May is simple: either keep the flame of independence burning, or extinguish it completely until 2026

The other day, I challenged Wings readers to ask Stuart what his plan was for using this election to bring independence closer, rather than push it further way.  If voting for the SNP is supposedly harmful, then who should we vote for instead, and how will that help?  I don't know if he read that post or if it was just coincidence, but a few hours later he posted this - 

"We wish we had a constructive course of action to suggest to you, folks. But we don’t, because democracy has failed you. There is no way you can vote that will fix the ruins the SNP have made of Scotland. We cannot see a way forward. It is becoming nearly impossible to evade the conclusion that all is lost. Nicola Sturgeon has destroyed it."

And, in fairness, that's a very clear and direct answer to the question I wanted posed.  He's given up on independence, has no plan for making it happen, and thinks no such plan is even possible.  The problem is, of course, that it's a dreadful and self-evidently wrong answer that his readers - most of whom still passionately long for independence - must reject.  It doesn't even make sense on the basis of Stuart's own world view.  If, as he believes, Nicola Sturgeon is the biggest roadblock to independence and that the current SNP leadership have no intention of taking the steps necessary to bring a referendum about, it surely must have occurred to him that if the SNP win this election there would be five more years of government in which a leadership change could occur - and that would be pretty likely to happen, because Ms Sturgeon has already served as First Minister for six and a half years, and ten years often proves to be the shelf-life for even the most successful leader.  If, say, Joanna Cherry or someone with similar views were to take over, they could actually do something with that power if the pro-indy parties have a majority in the Scottish Parliament - but they would be utterly powerless if there's no majority.  And the question of whether there's a majority or not will be determined in the election this May.  It's not rocket science - so why does Stuart not seem to care what the result of that election is? Actually, strike that, why does he seem to be actively campaigning to make a pro-independence majority less likely to happen?

I'd just note that Stuart has been insisting to his readers for months that Nicola Sturgeon's departure is inevitable, and is just a question of when not if.  If he truly believes that, and if it hasn't been a gigantic bluff, then even the strongest Sturgeon-sceptic should have no reservation in campaigning for a pro-indy majority in May, because the First Minister won't be around for much longer anyway.  Indeed, it would probably be better if a leadership change waits until after the election, because at that point there's more likely to be an adventurous choice of successor.  Immediately before an election, all the SNP would care about is picking a safe pair of hands to get us through the next few weeks.  (John Swinney is the name that springs to mind.)

There's also the possibility that Stuart is wrong and that a majority SNP government would deliver independence even under Nicola Sturgeon's leadership.  It's impossible to quantify the likelihood of that in percentage terms, but isn't it worth giving ourselves the chance of finding out?  All of these points boil down to the same basic choice - we either keep the flame of hope alive by electing a pro-indy majority in May, or we extinguish all hope until at least 2026.  Isn't keeping hope alive the logical thing to do, and if you don't think that, aren't you part of the problem?

Incidentally, I don't for a moment believe the conspiracy theorists, such as controversial journalist David Leask, who say that Stuart is a 'plant', put there to destroy the independence movement from within.  I think he just has an 'all or nothing' psychological disposition, which leads him to catastrophise and become destructive when things aren't going in the way he hoped.  But it's up to others to pull him out of that pit, not to jump in with him and drag this whole country in too.

Anti-independence parties in disarray as YouGov poll suggests SNP are on course for huuuuuge overall majority

Thanks to Scottish Skier for pointing out to me that there's a second Scottish poll out today, this time from YouGov - and it's much, much better than the one from ComRes.  Not only does it suggest that the SNP are still on course to get their overall majority back, it also suggests that majority could be extremely large.

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot voting intentions (YouGov, 4th-8th March 2021):

SNP 52% (-4)

Conservatives 22% (+3)

Labour 17% (+2)

Liberal Democrats 6% (-)

Greens 2% (-)

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot voting intentions:

SNP 45% (-2)

Conservatives 21% (+1)

Labour 16% (+3)

Greens 6% (-1)

Liberal Democrats 5% (-1)

SSP 3% (-)

Seats projection (with changes from 2016): SNP 71 (+8), Conservatives 29 (-2), Labour 20 (-4), Liberal Democrats 5 (-), Greens 4 (-2)

SNP: 71 seats (55.0%)

All others: 58 seats (45.0%)

SNP OVERALL MAJORITY OF 13 SEATS

Pro-independence parties: 75 seats (58.1%)

Anti-independence parties: 54 seats (41.9%)

PRO-INDEPENDENCE MAJORITY OF 21 SEATS

For the most part, YouGov are actually showing much the same trends as ComRes - it's just that the SNP were starting from a higher base, meaning the drop doesn't matter so much.  The one really big difference is that ComRes suggested the Greens would make substantial gains whereas YouGov are saying they're on course to lose seats - and I think that can be explained mostly by methodology.  Both ComRes and Survation use a question about the list ballot that I suspect leads some respondents to wrongly think they're being asked for a second preference vote, so for my money the YouGov list numbers are more likely to be accurate.

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 49% (-2)

No 51% (+2)

As far as the indyref figures are concerned, ComRes and YouGov are as one - and strange though it may seem, that's extremely reassuring.  A few months ago, ComRes were at the Yes-friendly end of the spectrum and YouGov were at the No-friendly end, with a huge 7% gap between them.  That means if YouGov had replicated the ComRes trend, Yes could now be sitting on a lowly 42%.  Instead there's been a convergence, which suggests that the swing back to No may not have been as substantial as we feared.  49% is only four points below YouGov's all-time high for Yes.

Scottish voting intentions for Westminster:

SNP 50% (-3)

Conservatives 23% (+4)

Labour 17% (-)

Liberal Democrats 5% (+1)

Greens 3% (-)

Reform UK 1% (-2)

Seats projection (with changes from 2019): SNP 55 (+7), Conservatives 3 (-3), Labour 1(-), Liberal Democrats 0 (-4)

For some unknown reason, YouGov tend to show much lower support for a second independence referendum than other polling firms, but nevertheless, there's a narrow majority in this poll (42% to 39%) in favour of holding a referendum within the next five years.

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I've written today's online-only National Extra piece about the current polling situation (and I did it before I was aware of the indy numbers in the YouGov poll) - you can read it HERE.  

Savanta ComRes poll: Pro-independence parties on course for 57% of the seats in the Scottish Parliament

Still licking their wounds after being caught red-handed over the #Matchettgate fake poll scandal, the Scotsman have released the Holyrood numbers from yet another poll, and we can but hope that they're not telling porkies this time.

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot voting intentions (Savanta ComRes): 

SNP 48% (-6) 

Conservatives 23% (-) 

Labour 20% (+4) 

Liberal Democrats 8% (+3)

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot voting intentions: 

SNP 40% (-3)

Conservatives 24% (+3) 

Labour 18% (-) 

Greens 10% (-) 

Liberal Democrats 6% (-) 

Seats projection (with changes from 2016 election): SNP 64 (+1), Conservatives 30 (-1), Labour 20 (-4), Greens 10 (+4), Liberal Democrats 5 (-)

SNP: 64 seats (49.6%)

All others: 65 seats (50.4%)

SNP SHORT OF AN OVERALL MAJORITY BY 1 SEAT

Pro-independence parties: 74 seats (57.4%)

Anti-independence parties: 55 seats (42.6%)

PRO-INDEPENDENCE MAJORITY OF 19 SEATS

The Scotsman article makes hay with the projection that the SNP would be just shy of a single-party majority, but in my view that's a red herring.  ComRes ask a Survation-like question for the regional list, which I suspect leads to a slight overestimate of the Greens' support and a slight underestimate of the SNP's support.  The likelihood on these figures is that the SNP would  actually have an overall majority - but polls are snapshots not predictions, and the real concern is that the direction of travel at the moment is not the right one.

It's interesting, by the way, that the Scotsman are presenting the seats projection as good news for the Tories and bad news for the SNP - when in fact it shows the SNP one seat up on last time, and the Tories one seat down.

If the SNP actually did end up on exactly 64 seats, although it wouldn't be an overall majority, what would probably happen is that they'd install an opposition MSP as Presiding Officer, and then it would be a 64-64 split between government and opposition.  (Either that or they'd go into coalition with the Greens and get a majority that way.)

UPDATE:  Many thanks to a commenter for pointing out the indyref numbers from the same poll - I'd somehow overlooked them...

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 49% (-)

No 51% (-)

So no change at all from the last legitimate ComRes poll, and that's perhaps a further indication that the ship has steadied after a difficult few weeks.  Amusingly, if the media and unionist politicians want to keep up the pretence that the #Matchettgate poll was genuine, it means they'll have to report the new poll as showing a 1% increase for Yes!

The time to decide how we're going to win this election for Scotland is now - because by hook or by crook, we simply have to win it

Long-term readers may recall that, a day or two before the 2016 election, I put out a blogpost saying I was alarmed at the sudden narrowing of the SNP's poll lead and that we had to ditch the complacency about an SNP overall majority being "inevitable".  This time it's worse, because I'm going to have to put out the same warning two months before polling day.  That means there's still loads of time for the wheels to come off completely and for us to end up with the catastrophe of a unionist majority in May.  I can't foresee any circumstances in which there won't at least be an SNP-led minority government, but that's not much use to us if Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems have a majority between them and can block anything and everything the pro-indy parties try to do between now and 2026.

What makes this situation even more dangerous is that, unlike in 2016, we have the largest pro-independence website actively campaigning against the SNP.  Now, I understand the argument that the SNP is not independence, and that you can support independence while opposing the SNP, but the way you would do that is by backing a viable pro-indy alternative.  Apart from the Green party and possibly Andy Wightman, no such alternative currently exists.  OK, there's still time for an Alex Salmond-led party to emerge, and if that happens Stuart and I will presumably end up on the same side in support of it.  But with every passing day the chances of that probably recede.  If no such party appears, what is Stuart's plan for using this election to make independence happen?  I honestly, truly do not believe he has one.  I think he'll spend the next two months campaigning for the SNP to lose without offering a credible alternative.  And if in doing so he contributes to a unionist majority in May, he'll celebrate that and say it's all for the best because independence wasn't going to happen under Nicola Sturgeon's watch anyway, and at least her political demise has been brought closer.  Well, that 'strategy' might be fine for anyone who is only hoping for independence in 2028 or 2030.  Not so great for the rest of us.

Seriously, what are people doing? There are currently two tiny pro-indy "game the system" parties planning to stand against each other on the list, which simply makes the chances of anyone successfully gaming the system even more absurdly remote.  I could understand ISP's argument a few months ago that it was ridiculous to ask them to come under the AFI umbrella when ISP were a registered party and AFI were not.  But now that both are registered, surely common sense should prevail and an electoral pact should be agreed to ensure that only one of the two parties stands in each individual region.  And it ought to go without saying that neither party should be standing in the South of Scotland or Highlands & Islands, where the SNP currently hold list seats.  Make no mistake: the SNP have a very real chance of winning list seats in every region, so the intervention of ISP and AFI could cause harm everywhere.  But the risk is particularly high in South of Scotland and Highlands & Islands.

The bottom line is that, as far as the list vote is concerned, we need to jump one way or the other.  We either need a single, credible pro-indy alternative to the SNP with big name backing and broad support - or we need to forget the whole idea and get behind the SNP (or the Greens, or Wightman).  Either is fine, but it needs to be one or the other, it needs to be wholehearted, and the choice needs to be made very soon.  If there are discussions going on behind the scenes, I hope there's a sense of urgency to them.

On the constituency vote, it's even more straightforward: the SNP are the only game in town.  If you abstain or vote for any other party (and that includes the Greens) you are causing harm to independence, because literally the only alternative to an SNP constituency MSP is a unionist constituency MSP.  I genuinely understand how infuriating it is when an SNP politician who has been ignoring or belittling your legitimate concerns about self-ID or the Hate Crimes Bill tells you "but you've still got to vote for us, you've got no choice".  But please just forget about the politicians and think about your own hopes for your own country.

A challenge for Wings readers.  The next time Stuart tells you that voting for the SNP will do no good, even if you agree with him, ask: "So who do we vote for instead, and how will that help?  What's the masterplan, chief?"

Savanta ComRes poll finds opinion on independence almost evenly split - and the public want an independence referendum within the next five years

You'll be (sort of) relieved to hear that this one isn't yet another fake poll or misreported poll - but what it is, however, is a slightly out of date poll.  It was conducted between the 26th of February and the 4th of March, which presumably means that the overwhelming majority of the fieldwork preceded Nicola Sturgeon's evidence to the Holyrood inquiry.

Should Scotland be an independent country? (Savanta ComRes)

Yes 49%

No 51%

I think one thing we can draw comfort from is that the Panelbase poll, which was marginally better than this one in that it showed an exact 50-50 split, was conducted later.  OK, Panelbase and ComRes polls aren't directly comparable, but there's no reason to think Panelbase's methodology is more Yes-friendly than ComRes - indeed, if anything there's a little bit of evidence to the contrary.  So although there was clearly a small-to-medium-sized swing back to No in the early weeks of this year, it's possible that the position may have stabilised more recently.

It looks like there was only one other question in the ComRes poll - on when or whether a second independence referendum should be held.  By a narrow margin of 47% to 45%, voters want a referendum within the next five years.  Only 19% of voters don't want a referendum to ever take place.