Polling shows independence support is rising - So use your vote to send a message to Westminster
The latest Opinion poll of Scottish independence found 55% Yes to independence. It's no wonder the Labour government in Westminster is desperately clinging to the bankrupt Conservative mantra of “Now is not the time” over a second independence referendum.
Recently Labour leadership hopeful Wes Streeting took an even harder and more anti-democratic line sneering “We’re not having one!”
Any UK government that cared about social justice and democracy would deliver a referendum if and when the people of Scotland vote for one. There is a good chance that the next UK government will be Nigel Farage's Reform UK and many feel that devolution and democracy itself will come under attack, when that happens.
Thursday’s Scottish election therefore represents a chance to send a clear message to London not to hold Scotland back any longer. Scotland is on the road to independence. Independence is the choice of the majority and will become even more so as time goes on.
Polling shows that the indy cause has come a long way - independence is in sight.
There have been 20 polls conducted in the last six months (listed below). Pollsters recommend stripping out undecided voters to get the most accurate result and averaging all of the polls, Yes is just a tick over half at 50.5%. Excluding one negative poll outlier takes it to 53% for Yes.
Within the polling, Ipsos Mori confirms that support for independence among younger voters is 62%. Another recent poll by Find Out Now showed voters in their 30s are 68% in favour. The oldest voters are the most pro-Union and, as the electorate changes, independence becomes inevitable.
The authoritative Social Attitudes Survey says there is no evidence that there is a life cycle effect, as argued by many Unionist politicians. They claim that once young people get on the property ladder and settle down they become more risk-averse - but they used to make the same argument about the vote for the Conservative Party in Scotland.
Younger voters are far less attached to the Union and see independence as the normal constitutional option for Scotland. Over time, they form a growing structural base of support for independence.
YouGov is an outlier
One pollster is an outlier - YouGov also does more polls than any other pollster - four in the last six months. It is consistently showing a different result from other pollsters, finding No in the lead. That is pushing down the average. Without YouGov, there is a solid majority for Yes.
YouGov differs from many traditional pollsters by relying primarily on a large, permanent online panel of registered members. US academic journal Social Science has refused to accept YouGov polling as they claim some groups may be underrepresented on their self-selected panel. (The only other pollster that finds a No majority is Lord Ashcroft’s single poll which also uses a completely different methodology and weighting.)
One reason for the lower support for Yes in YouGov polls could be that independence supporters are less likely to put themselves on a YouGov panel. The YouGov polling on Scottish independence should be more transparent.
Nigel Farage and his team criticised YouGov last month for lack of transparency and for underestimating support for Reform UK, claiming the pollster’s methods were misleading and against industry rules - the pollster has now changed how it reports the party’s vote.
We have come a long way already
Back in 1979, at the time of the 1979 Scottish devolution referendum, independence support stood at around 14% of the electorate.
In 1979, the Scottish electorate voted Yes to a Scottish Parliament but instead got the long years of Conservative governments Scotland did not elect. When the Scottish Parliament was reconvened in 1999, independence sat at about 30%.
The Labour Party tried to hold back the tide for too long
After the SNP became the largest party in Holyrood in 2007, the Labour Party misjudged the reaction to blocking a referendum on Scottish independence. Feeling that Scotland was being denied rights that the Labour Party support for countries all around the world only made the calls grow stronger.
In 2008, on BBC Scotland's Politics Show, Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander declared: “Bring it on”. Alexander believed a ‘No” vote would damage the SNP and lead to Labour regaining power in Scotland. Scotland’s Unionist establishment were furious. Alexander was immediately denounced for “misjudgment and political naivety”.
But kicking the can down the road by refusing a referendum did not make the issue go away. Instead it laid the way for the 2014 referendum - and in the long term, that refusal destroyed Labour in Scotland.
Since fighting the Better Together campaign and delivering Scotland to a decade of Conservative austerity and a hard Brexit, Labour has increasingly been viewed as the lead member of a Unionist band of brothers whose first loyalty is to the British state. Now they could deliver another referendum. If their main interest was social justice and the future of Scotland, they would.
The road ahead
When Westminster finally agreed to a referendum on Scottish independence in 2011, support was sitting at around 29%. Over the campaign, it rose to 45%. If we start the next campaign with more than 50% in favour, then independence is inevitable - and the demographic tide is impossible to stop.
The Unionist side King Cnut style looks likely to make the same mistake of trying to hold back the tide. From a unionist party point of view, the best time to have a referendum is now - delaying only makes victory for the independence cause even more likely.
The people of Scotland are sovereign and have the right to choose their constitutional future - the UK government cannot continue to deny Scotland this democratic right. If there is a pro-independence majority at Holyrood 2026, we must campaign to encourage the Scottish people to stand against that assault on democracy.
But we must force the next campaign to happen. Getting out the vote for pro-independence parties on May 7 is vital. If there is a Yes majority, it may seem unlikely but Westminster may be forced by a major ‘Scotland’s right to choose’ campaign to concede to a September 2028 referendum. However, if they continue to refuse then the choice facing Scotland will be independence or be ruled by Reform or a Tory Reform coalition in a de-facto referendum at the General Election in 2029.
