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.
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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’”
Anonymous
As long as economic policy is dictated by the needs of the City it won’t matter where MPs come from, they will have no real influence over things like interest rates. There is no sense in which FFA needs to mean higher bills, but thre are other isues. Suppose – like the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands – the Scottish parliament raised all taxes and then made a contribution to Westminster for defence. In the evetn of a war like Iraq, the Scottish government might choose to defer or even cancel it’s financial contribution in protest against the conflict. That would not be an insuperable obstacle in operational terms, but it would be a publicity disaster for the UK government.
Of course I would like to see democratic reform, what fair-minded person would not?
There are – of course – challeges in a PR system, but thre are challenges in the current arrangements and it cannpt really be argued that FPTP has led to competnet government. I think a federal structure has attractions, but there would still be the same centralist condition; England would still be run for the benefit of London and the rest of the country would n’t get a look-in. Maybe if federalism was combined with a massive decentralisation to take all major government departments out of London and distribute them to Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow etc we would be going in the rigtht direction.
Scottish MPs in government? That rather depends on the outcome of the referendum of course, but after Brown and Darling it ‘ll be a long time before anyone is prepared to accept a Scottish person as chancellor. Also, assuming (and broadly I still do) that the ‘no’ campaign wins, it is unlikely that Labour in Scotland will continue to benefit from FPTP. If the gnats win in vote-share, it may be them that gets 70% of the seats for 40% (or less) of the vote, in which case Scottish Labour MPs will have a very much smaller voice in the PLP thatn they have had in the past. Ed may even have to depend on the support of the gnats at Westminster, which was largely the case for Callaghan in the late 70s.
Ed's Talking Balls
Get over it. The “Yes” campaign took a drubbing in the AV vote. Not the media’s fault it was a ‘miserable little compromise’. And to think, they would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those pesky voters.
Anonymous
Why should I “get over” media manipulation of a vote? Simply because you hate and fear democracy doesn’t mean I need to!
Anonymous
Um, no, adding a huge chunk of costs to the taxpayer by having ministers and staff constantly traveling isn’t the best of all ideas, then there’s coordination issues and so on.
It still very much sounds to me like you’re trying for the positives of independence without the downsides.
“after Brown and Darling it ‘ll be a long time before anyone is prepared to accept a Scottish person as chancellor”
Er, what? The Cabinet’s appointed.
See: Mandleson.
Ed's Talking Balls
The usual leftist response to defeat: the media pulled the wool over people’s eyes. Or it could, just could, be that the people understood all too well the deficiencies of AV and preferred FPTP.