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Why Has Nationalist Support Fallen?

19th March 2021

One thing is clear: support for the SNP and for independence is now consistently lower in the polls than it was at the beginning of the year. In the last half dozen polls support for Yes (after leaving aside Don’t Knows) has averaged 49%, with No narrowly ahead on 51%. This represents a five-point fall […]


Has The Constitutional Wind Changed Direction?

26th February 2021

The wind has seemingly been veering in that direction for a while. However, the latest Ipsos MORI poll for STV, which (after leaving aside Don’t Knows) puts support for independence on 52%, down four points on the company’s previous poll in late November, now provides further confirmation. It now appears that, far from being set […]


New Year, New Polling

27th January 2021

We have now had three polls of voting intentions in Scotland since the turn of the year, one from Savanta ComRes for The Scotsman, a second from Survation for the ScotGoesPop website, and a third from Panelbase for The Sunday Times. The last of these was part of polling undertaken in all four parts of […]


The Changed Foundations of SNP Support

27th November 2020

The SNP, whose virtual conference takes places this weekend, could hardly be in finer fettle. Its leader, Nicola Sturgeon, is as popular as she has been any point since taking over the reins six years ago – primarily because of voters’ positive evaluations of her handling of the coronavirus outbreak. Polls of voting intention for […]


Facing More Difficult Circumstances? Prospects for the Scottish Conservatives

20th November 2020

At first glance the Scottish Conservatives, who are meeting in virtual conference this weekend, can look forward to next year’s Scottish Parliament election with a fair degree of confidence. In polls conducted since September, the party has averaged 20% on the constituency vote and 19% on the regional vote. That is somewhat down on the […]


Is Brexit Fuelling Support for Independence?

3rd November 2020

The rise in support for independence is now well established in the polls. The trend first became apparent last year, when the level of support for Yes increased from around the 45% mark at which it had appeared to be stuck ever since the 2014 independence referendum to an average of 49%. This figure then […]


Is Scotland More Egalitarian than England?

29th October 2020

It is often argued that Scotland is more left-wing than England. After all, the relative weakness of the Conservative party north of the border would seem a clear testament to that being the case. And the claim, which has often been made by SNP spokespersons, fits one of the key arguments that the party presents […]


Brexit, Coronavirus and the Economy: Three Key Issues in the Independence Debate

20th October 2020

The last week or so has seen the publication of three further polls of attitudes towards Scotland’s constitutional status. Two of them, from Ipsos MORI (for STV News) and from Savanta ComRes, continued the gradual trickle of polls this year of how people would vote in another independence referendum. The third, from Survation (for the […]


Twenty years of changing attitudes towards Holyrood and Westminster

29th September 2020

Today sees the publication by the Scottish Government of a Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) report on how attitudes in Scotland towards the devolved and UK-wide institutions have evolved since the Scottish Parliament was created in 1999. Throughout the last twenty years SSA has regularly tracked attitudes towards how Scotland is and should be governed, thereby […]


YouGov Confirm Yes Ahead

12th August 2020

Until now, all of the evidence that there has been a further swing in favour of independence in recent months has come from just one pollster – Panelbase. In the absence of any other polling, it was not unreasonable to ask whether, perhaps, they might just possibly have got it wrong, though the reaction of […]


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