A new poll today revealed only a third of Scots would vote yes to separation, against 57% sticking with the Union, as Alex Salmond launched the ‘yes’ campaign.
.
As Alex Salmond finally launched his independence campaign – fully five years after becoming first minister – a new poll today revealed only a third of Scots would vote yes to separation, against 57 per cent sticking with the Union.
It also emerged today that the Archbishop of Canterbury is opposed to independence, which he says is no “magic bullet”.
Beyond the headline figures, today’s YouGov poll reveals further damning findings, as this morning’s Guardian reports:
The poll also suggested that only 58% of people who voted for the SNP in last May’s landslide victory for Salmond would back independence in a snap referendum, while 28% of SNP voters opposed it.
“Even after winning two Scottish general election victories, raising a war-chest of millions and deploying the full resources of the Scottish government, Alex Salmond has failed to convince Scots that they should leave the United Kingdom,” [Alistair] Darling said.
“The nationalists will go to great lengths to try to prove there is a groundswell towards leaving the UK but the truth is that their campaign is stalled. Independence is as unpopular as it has ever been.”
The polling results will not greatly surprise the “yes” campaign but Darling’s intervention marks the first head-on challenge for Salmond by the anti-independence coalition formed by the three main pro-UK parties of Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats, which is expected to launch formally in June.
• Galloway to square up to Salmond over independence 14 May 2012
• MPs accuse SNP of “biased” independence question 8 May 2012
• Salmond’s screeching u-turn over independence consultation 3 Apr 2012
• Salmond courts Murdoch as pro-union dream team finally begins to emerge 28 Feb 2012
• Polls apart? The news for the SNP might not be as good as it looks 6 Feb 2012
Salmond, meanwhile, sought to brush off the poll at his big Edinburgh launch, calling for a million Scots to sign a ‘yes’ declaration, with his deputy, Nicola Sturgeon, telling the Today Programme this morning that independence “puts powers over our economy, over our political life into the hands of the people of Scotland”.
The vote will take place in autumn 2014 – expect the claims and counter-claims to intensify.
30 Responses to “Salmond quits stalling and finally launches independence campaign – as poll says ‘no’”
Chris
Will there be a promise not to keep on holding votes on this once we vote No to giving fat Eck more power?
Hopefully the question won’t be put again for at least 25 years, or does fat Eck think to repeat the vote ubtil he gets the answer he wants
Anonymous
Roddy – not a fan of independence, but the practical reality is that currency unions can be very successful and that as things stand there is no Scottish participation in the decision-making process anyway; governments (left or right) make their policy on the basis of what is good for the London area and don’t really give a damn about the West country, the Midlands or the North of England, let alone Wales or Scotland.. Northern Ireland gets a bit more atention becuause of the high-level of public interest in the US.
JC is quite right. There’s nothing wrong with having a referendum – win or lose – but you have to wonder why every party is opposed to a referendum on the basis of what people actually want and what makes coherent political sense. Labour should adopt Full Fiscal Autonomy and that would scupper the gnats. Since Scotland would pay for what it spends there would be no issue in selling that to people in England.
I still don’t think the ‘yes’ camp will win – though having Darling at the helm of the ‘no’ campaign does not inspire unbounded confidence for obvious reasons – but we should be ready for a close-run thing and probably a number surprises in the form of Labour and lib-dem figures (and maybe the odd centrist tory too) plumping for the ‘yes’ campaign. Major Labour (or ex-Labour) figures like Dennis Canavan have had quite an impact and will proably have more as time goes on.
Polling is a bit suspect on the independence issue. It seems very probable that voters have a reluctance to tell pollsters that they favour independence in the same way as in the late 80s and early 90s they tended to deny that they would vore tory and in the late 90s and early 2000s tended to deny they would vore Labour. Eventually pollsters learend to take account of that and adjust their ‘weighting’ accordingly. I’m not at all sure how significant that factor is, but I am aware that the proportion of people I meet who will vore ‘yes’ is rather larger than the opinion polls would indicate, and this is in Shetland where – according to various tory and liberal peers – everybody ‘hates Scotland’ , also, you meet many fewer people now who are actively opposed to independence than was the case just three or four years ago.
Finally, the referendum vore will not adhere to party lines. One of the reasons people voted SNP is that they wanted competent social democrat government which McConnel administration utterly failed to deliver, but Salmond & co have. Naturally a fair number of those SNP voters will vote ‘no’. Equally, there are many people who would never vote for the SNP – including a great many labour voters – who will vote ‘yes’. In that sense this is more like the EU referendum than the devolution referendum; we’re not going to see Labour MPs (well… maybe one MP from Edinburgh and one list MSP ) defecting to the gnats, but we should certainly expect to see a few MPs, MSPs, councillors and other prominent people deviating from the mainstream of the party for the duration of the campaign.
On the up side….it’s much worse for the lib-dems. Probably a majority of lib-dem voters will defy their MPs and actvists and vote yes, so with any luck this’ll be the end of the lib-dems. How sad,
Anonymous
“there is no Scottish participation in the decision-making process anyway”
There most certainly /are/ Scottish MP’s. Certainly most are not in government…but they have been and will again (one way or another). Perhaps you’d like to consider voting reform in the UK – PR – rather than independence, as a better alternative?
“Full Fiscal Autonomy” is also a terrible option – it’s independence, with added bills. If you want that kind of option, then let’s have a proper federal structure with defined powers at each level (And an English Parliament).
John Ruddy
I was speaking to an SNP MSP the other week, and he made clear that they will “keep on having a referendum until we get the answer we want”.
Anonymous
As per Thatcher and Atlee…you’re not asking the ordinary people.
But yes, it is happening. And I and others intend to watch the media like hawks on this, after the lies of the AV “No” campaign.