Brexit means that the choice facing voters in another referendum on independence would be fundamentally different from that in 2014. In that referendum, a vote to remain part of the Union was also a vote to remain a member of the EU. Now, given that the Scottish National Party says that an independent Scotland would seek to become a full member of the European Union, any referendum on independence would effectively ask people in Scotland: would Scotland be better off remaining part of the UK and outside of the EU, or better off as a full member of the EU but no longer part of the UK? There is ..read more

The SNP leader, Humza Yousaf, faces a difficult party conference in Aberdeen, where his party will round off the autumn party conference season next week. Over the last couple of months the level of support for the SNP at a Westminster election has stood on average at just 36%, the lowest level it has been since the September 2014 referendum and nine points below the party’s tally in the 2019 UK election. In contrast, Labour, whose support fell away markedly in the wake of the indyref, are now more popular than at any point since; their current polling average of 32% means they are now breathi ..read more

The coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla in Westminster Abbey on Saturday has unsurprisingly generated a considerable amount of polling on attitudes towards the monarchy in recent week. Much of that has been Britain-wide. However, there has also been some polling of Scotland alone that allows us to examine attitudes north of the border and compare them with the position in the rest of Britain. We previously examined this subject in September, shortly after the death of Queen Elizabeth II. In that blog we made three points. First, that while the monarchy was more popular than having ..read more

Scottish Labour meet in Edinburgh this weekend in better heart than for a long time. The party outpolled the Conservatives in last May’s local elections, the first time it had done so in a Scotland-wide ballot since 2016. Almost every poll conducted since the beginning of last year has suggested that the party has now reclaimed the mantle of principal challengers to the SNP. Now, the party is said to believe that Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation yesterday will create an opportunity to make further progress. Meanwhile, the party’s recent advances across Britain as a whole have opened up the prospe ..read more

The Supreme Court judgement that the Scottish Parliament does not have the legal authority to hold a referendum on independence was widely welcomed by unionist politicians. However, so far at least, it seems to have undermined rather than underpinned the foundations of public support for the Union. Four polls of people’s vote intentions in a second referendum have been conducted since the Court published its judgement on 23 November. All four have recorded a swing in favour of Yes, and, as a result, all four have put Yes ahead – on average (one Don’t Knows are excluded) by 54% to 46%. The Late ..read more

One remarkable development during the COVID-19 pandemic was a marked if temporary increase in the level of support for independence. Every published opinion poll conducted between June 2020 and January 2021 had Yes ahead of No when people were asked how they would vote in response to the question that appeared on the referendum ballot paper in 2014. This was the first time ever that polling had so consistently put independence ahead. There was circumstantial evidence that some people’s views on independence had been influenced by the widespread perception that the Scottish Government was handl ..read more

The latest Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) report on attitudes to government is published today. Given the ongoing coronavirus restrictions in place when the 2021/22 survey was conducted (October 2021 to March 2022), it could not be conducted as previously by face-to-face interviews in participants’ homes. Instead all interviews were conducted over the telephone. This difference in the way the survey was conducted, and its effect on who took part, makes comparison with the results of previous editions of the survey more difficult than it usually would have been. Nevertheless, the 2021/22 surve ..read more

Today Nicola Sturgeon is releasing the latest and most important instalment in the Scottish Government’s series of white papers intended to make the case for independence. The latest publication will address the economy and currency. This is an important development in the independence debate. Attitudes towards the economy played a key role in voters’ decisions in the 2014 referendum, while the question of what currency an independent Scotland would and should use proved one of the most contentious during the referendum campaign. Much may rest on how well or badly today’s publication is receiv ..read more

Scottish Labour meet in Edinburgh this weekend in better heart than for a long time. The party outpolled the Conservatives in last May’s local elections, the first time it had done so in a Scotland-wide ballot since 2016. Almost every poll conducted since the beginning of last year has suggested that the party has now reclaimed the mantle of principal challengers to the SNP. Now, the party is said to believe that Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation yesterday will create an opportunity to make further progress. Meanwhile, the party’s recent advances across Britain as a whole have opened up the prospe ..read more

Just twelve months after last year’s Holyrood election, Scotland goes to the polls again this week. This time the ballot is for all 1,226 seats on Scotland’s 32 councils. The electoral system, however, is very different. The local elections will be held using the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system of proportional representation that was first introduced in 2007. Under this system voters are invited to rank the candidates in their ward in order of preference – expressing as many or as few preferences as they wish. Nearly all wards in Scotland elect three or four councillors. In a three membe ..read more