There’s a new YouGov poll out on Scottish matters.

On the independence front,

30% are in favour on independence. This represents a decline of 1% since March and a decline of 3% since January.

54% are opposed to independence. This represents no change since March and an increase of 1% since January.

However it is over two years until the actual referendum, there is a lot of time for the polling to move.

Both sides should remember that a year before the AV referendum, an ICM poll had 56% voting for AV and 35% for FPTP.

There was also some Holyrood/Westminster VI polling

The poll also reinforces the gap in voting intention between Westminster and Holyrood, with Labour now ahead of the SNP on Westminster voting intentions to 14 points, up from just five points compared to a YouGov poll in May.

Labour is on 43 per cent, up three from May. The SNP is now on 29 per cent, down six. The Tories are up one point to 15 per cent, while the Lib Dems are up two points to 7 per cent.

 
The SNP and Labour’s roles are reversed for voting at Holyrood, where the latest polls show the SNP is now some 15 points ahead of Labour, and has easily held the gains it won at last year’s Holyrood election.

TSE

Marf gives her take

Recent Threads

Will the time ever be right for it to be held?

The big political news overnight is that Dave has said in an article under his name in the Telegraph that he’ll consider a referendum on the UK’s EU relationship.

But there’s a catch. This will only happen when the time is right.

To agree with the principle of doing something but with a caveat on the timing is the classic ruse used by politicians through the ages.

The article might help deal with some of the pressure for now but then again it might not.

A key part of Cameron’s argument for a delay is his view that Britain would be in a worse position if the referendum produced an “In” vote.

He says this would have profound disadvantages because “further attempts at changing Britain’s relationship with Europe would be met with cries that the British people had already spoken”.

That clearly is right but is it going to resonate with those within his party and potential UKIP switchers who have been campaigning hard for such a move?

For most of the referendum backers appear to have absolutely no doubts about the outcome – it would be to get out.

So threatening them with the consequences of Britain voting to remain might not have much potency – they simply do not believe that that eventuality would happen

After all the polling on this is pretty clear. People tell pollsters that they would vote to leave.

I’m not sure that that is a correct view. If there ever is an IN-OUT referendum then those fighting for the status quo would use precisely the same tactics as being employed ahead of the Scottish independence vote. You sew in voters minds a fear of the unknown and most referendums that have held in the UK have resulted in a rejection of whatever change is being proposed.

Just two months ago, for instance, ten major English cities had votes on whether to switch their local government to having elected executive mayors. Only one produced a YES vote.

Mike Smithson @MSmithsonPB

James Kelly on the pro-independence campaign

If there is to be a Yes vote in the Scottish independence referendum, a prerequisite is surely that the Yes campaign itself is as broadly-based as possible, and extends well beyond the SNP’s ranks. The potential is certainly there – the Scottish Green Party is supportive of independence, and its charismatic leader Patrick Harvie attended the Yes launch, where he was accorded virtual parity with Alex Salmond.

The Scottish Socialist Party will also be campaigning for a Yes vote, as will the popular independent politicians Margo MacDonald and Dennis Canavan. However, doubt has recently been cast on whether all of these disparate groups and individuals will be able to work together under the same umbrella, with some press reports indicating that the Greens and Margo MacDonald were withdrawing from the official Yes Scotland campaign.

Those reports have since been vehemently denied. The Greens have made clear that, while they have concerns about the SNP’s dominance of the campaign, they have yet to make a decision about whether to participate, and will do so at their annual conference. The alternative would be to run their own pro-independence campaign, stressing the party’s preference for an independent Scotland that breaks decisively from the Westminster model.

Even the merest possibility of two ‘competing’ campaigns ought to concern anyone who wants to see a Yes victory. Veteran nationalists are haunted by memories of the 1979 devolution referendum, which produced a much lower Yes vote than initially expected. To some extent this was due to tribal hatred between Labour and the SNP, and their inability to work together. Labour’s Donald Dewar later learnt the lessons of that campaign, and as a result was remarkably generous towards the SNP during the second devolution referendum in 1997.

The gut instinct of many Labour MPs and activists would have been to portray a Yes vote to devolution as a vote against both the status quo and independence. Instead, they were instructed to effectively go along with the SNP line that devolution could open the way for independence in the future – but only if the Scottish people voted for it. The result of that unprecedented compromise was a whopping victory for the Yes side.

The present-day Yes campaign must follow the same path, and show generosity to the aspirations of the smaller participants. Perhaps the reason why it has found it difficult to do so thus far is that Yes Scotland is more lop-sided than its 1997 forerunner, with the SNP supplying the vast bulk of the manpower and finance. But it would be a strength, not a weakness to acknowledge that there are multiple views within the campaign about what an independent Scotland would look like.

The electorate are mature enough to understand, for example, that a Yes vote is not automatically a vote for the SNP’s preference of retaining the monarchy, or for the Greens’ preference of an elected Head of State. There was a spoof tweet the other day that made me laugh : “How on earth are we going to settle all these impossible questions? An election or something?” Quite so.

It’s for political parties to argue the case for their preferred model of independence in a post-referendum election. The Yes campaign ought to be coalescing around support for the principle of independence itself – nothing more, nothing less.

But that means the Greens will have to give a little as well. In many ways, their complaint seems to be not that the Yes campaign is not inclusive enough, but that it is not exclusive enough. They believe that only by providing a very specific manifesto for an independent Scotland will the Yes campaign be able to excite people. But while the Green vision for independence would indeed excite many people, it would also repel huge numbers of centrist and centre-right voters.

All of the component parts of the Yes campaign will therefore have to modify their outlook somewhat and adhere to the guiding principle : “other versions of independence are also available”.

James Kelly is a regular commenter on PB 

and the 2015 General election?

The Sunday Times reported over the weekend that the no campaign was in disarray, due to major unionist parties donors not willing to donate to the no campaign.

Willie Haughey, a tycoon who has given Labour about £1.3m since 2003, is the latest in a series of wealthy unionist businessmen refusing to back the No campaign.

Sir Jack Harvie, a Scottish construction tycoon who has raised about £16m for the Tories, has already made it clear he will not play a role despite pressure from within the party.

Lord Laidlaw, one of Scotland’s wealthiest men, who gave the Tories £3m but stopped bankrolling the party in 2009, has confirmed he will not provide support.

By contrast, the yes side has already raised £2million.

Whilst there are spending limits in the 16 weeks in the lead up to the day of the referendum, there are no limits, between now and then, a period both sides admit is crucial.

The Sunday Times then said was a reluctance by the no side, to put their head above the parapet because

Of a fear of recriminations from hardline nationalists, dubbed the cybernats, who have subjected opponents of independence to personal abuse online, and cited the example of Michelle Mone, the lingerie entrepreneur, who has been targeted for abuse after declaring her opposition to independence in an interview with The Sunday Times.

So the no side maybe reliant on the Unionst parties directly, however the referendum is scheduled to take place just over 6 months before the UK wide general election in May 2015, the fundraising activities and funds of the Westminster parties will be focussed on that General election and not on the referendum.

Given that there are few marginals and target seats for the Tories in Scotland, I can’t imagine David Cameron and the Tory party allocating much money towards the no side, even on a very good night, the Tories could expect to win only a handful of seats in Scotland in a General election, I expect pragmatism will rule the day and donors’ money will be used to fund the general election campaign.

The Lib Dems resources will be focussed on defending their seats, additionally, due to their losses in councillors so far in this parliament, their coffers have been reduced, as generally Lib Dem councillors pay 10% of their allowances to the party. So as much at they may wish to fund the no side, they may just not have the ability to do so.

Now Labour is the big imponderable, they have 41 MPs from Scotland so it is in their interest for Scotland to remain in the Union.

If the other two unionist parties are unwilling and unable to contribute much, then it may fall to Labour to make up the shortfall, but with a General Election on the horizon, they may be forced to choose between two unappealing choices, spend money trying to keep one of their traditional heartlands in the Union, from their general election funds, or try and win a general election without one of their traditional heartlands.

Ladbrokes have a market on the outcome of the Scottish referendum.

TSE 

Note: Mike Smithson returns from holiday today

What’ll the “Economist cover” do to the referendum?

Above is a version of what’s said to be the front cover of the latest Economist which hasn’t going down too well in nationalist circles overnight north of the border.

As can be seen Scotland has been renamed “Skintland“; the country’s capital becomes “Edinborrow“; the Orkneys and Shetlands are dubbed the “Orkward” and “Shutlands” islands while the Lowlands region is termed “Loanlands“.

Amongst the other re-namings are “Grumpians” for Grampians, “Aberdown” for Aberdeen and “Dunfor” for “Dundee”. Somebody has had a great deal of fun producing this.

What I am not so sure of is whether this is a genuine Economist cover or not.

Certainly looking at Economist.com we see the main cover story is about the US election following the withdrawal of Rick Santorum from the Republican nomination race.

Doing a search of the site for the term “Skintland” produces a nil result.

Even if this is a spoof it’s likely to have an impact. It will get emailed all over the place and could be seen by many more people than actually visit the Economist’s site. It feeds into perceptions of what the English are thought to feel about the Scots thus reinforcing views.

Do Brits generally vote for the status quo?

The wonderful Archbishop Cramner blog has an insightful post in which he poses the question of whether the much sought after referendum on leaving the EU could end up with the same outcome as on AV last May.

He argues: “..The pro-AV campaign was disunited, poorly articulated, badly led, painfully patronised and hopelessly disorganised. Against all that, its generous and credible funding went absolutely nowhere.

Similarly, on the matter of an EU referendum, we are told time and again that in excess of 50 per cent of the nation would vote to leave the EU tomorrow. And so those who yearn for liberation continue to demand such a referendum. Despite the chronic divisions in the ‘withdrawal’ camp, the demand is still for this strategy – the success of which would be wholly contingent upon unity, charismatic leadership, creative strategy, credible patronage and very generous funding….

The disparate, swivel-eyed, little-Englander, extremist, Right-Wing Withdrawalists would be up against the unified, enlightened at utterly reasonable voices of the entire Establishment – Government, BBC, Church (CofE and RC), and even the Monarchy itself…“

The polling ahead of the 1975 EEC referendum had the withdrawal side well ahead yet when it came to the election the country divided by 67.2% to 32.8% – a split which interestingly is within one point of what we saw on May 5th 2010 on the voting system.

The latest MORI issues polling continues to suggest that a very small proportion of voters are interested enough in the EU to name it as an “issue facing the country”. This month its down from 5% to 4% and this has come at a time when there’s been so much news about the crisis in the Euro-zone.

In England, at least there seems to be a reluctance to vote against the status quo when referenda have been held.

Thus over the past decade there have been 37 referenda in specific local authority areas on whether they should have directly elected mayors. Twelve have been passed and 25 rejected by the voters. Turnout levels, when no simultaneous election has been held on the same day, have been down as low as 10%.

Cramner, I believe, is on to something here. If there was an “In-Out” EU referenda then it could go the way of AV.

@MikeSmithsonPB

The big polling news of the week has been the difference view between the online pollster, YouGov, and the phone firm ICM on what voters are now thinking. The former has had Labour with leads of 5% or more all week – the latter, for the second month running, had the Conservatives with a one point lead.

A big difference between the two has been with the Lib Dem share. For YouGov has this at 9% while ICM had it nearly double at 17%. You can’t explain that by margin or error.

The only time we can test pollsters is when their final surveys before an election are tested against real results and the most recent national example was in May for the AV referendum.

The chart above shows how near the final surveys from the four pollster got to what actually happened. As can be seen YouGov undershot NO’s winning margin by 15.8%. ICM over-shot by just 0.2%.

In terms of sample size the YouGov final poll, details here, questioned 5.725. The ICM sample was just 1,035.

For years, as PB regulars will know, I’ve said that ICM is the “gold standard” irrespective of whether I have liked their findings or not. The May 5th 2011 test reinforced that view.

@MikeSmithsonPB