55% Yes ... independence support surges during our Autumn of Independence campaign

The first poll on Scottish independence after the majority of Believe in Scotland’s Autumn of Indy Action campaign has been implemented shows support for Yes significantly increasing to 55%.

Excluding don’t knows, the poll - carried out by Ipsos MORI for STV during November  - suggests if indyref2 was held now the 2014 result could be reversed.

The 55% Yes support is a five per cent increase on the last Ipsos MORI poll before the Scottish elections in May and is the highest Yes support in a year.

Our Autumn of Action kicked off on September 18, partnering with 112 local Yes groups who restarted their campaigns, the National Yes Network and The National putting out more than 600,000 leaflets.

Then we teamed up with the SNP and The National again to produce an 8-page newspaper and deliver it to a million homes across Scotland, reaching almost half the voting population with a message on Scotland's wellbeing through independence. Now Scotland has responded.

It has done so after the COP 26 conference in Glasgow raised the global perception of Scotland's contribution to combatting climate change and after the Westminster government became mired in sleaze allegations. The new poll showed approval ratings for Prime Minister Boris Johnson hitting a record low in Scotland. Four out of five respondents said they were dissatisfied with his performance.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced on Monday that the SNP’s independence campaign would begin ‘in earnest’ next spring, with a view to the referendum itself being held in 2023 - Believe in Scotland and the grassroots Yes campaigns have already started.

Yes support at 55% is a good pointer - especially as our poll on independence carried out by Panelbase just before our Day of Action in September showed only 48% backing for Yes with undecideds removed - but there is a lot more work to be done. This latest poll is not yet a trend. We need to do everything we can to make sure other polls also find growth in support for Yes.