[SCOT goes POP!] The media have been fibbing to us again over the last 24 hours: in fact, the YouGov poll does NOT show the public oppose a de facto referendum - it was instead a ridiculous question about Rhodesian-style UDI

[ALBA-Bot]

The media have been fibbing to us again over the last 24 hours: in fact, the YouGov poll does NOT show the public oppose a de facto referendum - it was instead a ridiculous question about Rhodesian-style UDI

On the previous thread, a commenter said that every time he'd heard a media outlet mention the new YouGov poll today, they had been at pains to downplay the headline result on independence (showing a 53% Yes vote) and had instead tried to divert our focus towards the alleged finding that the Scottish public "oppose" the de facto referendum plan.  But as far as I can see, no such finding exists.  There doesn't seem to be any sign of the YouGov data tables yet, but the What Scotland Thinks website does have an extensive list of results from the poll, and the only one that relates to a de facto referendum is in response to a question worded as follows:

"Would you support or oppose the Scottish Government declaring Scotland independent without a referendum if the SNP – and other parties supporting Independence – gain more than 50% of the vote at the next General Election?"

That's a question about Rhodesian-style UDI, not about the principle of a de facto referendum.  There is not even a shred of a suggestion from the SNP that they would declare independence unilaterally if they won 50%+ of the popular vote in a de facto referendum - instead they would use the mandate as leverage to pressurise the UK government into negotiating an agreed independence settlement.  (Some cynics think they wouldn't even go that far, and instead would revert to the broken record of begging for a Section 30 order that everyone knows will never be granted.)

It's difficult not to reach the conclusion that either YouGov or their client (more likely the latter in this case) deliberately asked a leading question about UDI to obtain a negative result, and did so with the full intention of misrepresenting that negative result as being about the principle of using an election as a de facto referendum.  It really is a pretty brazen stunt, even by the normal standards of the Brit Nat propagandists in the media.

What they're rather less keen to mention is that the poll shows that a clear majority (51% to 38%) want an indyref within the next five years, and that an almost identical majority (51% to 39%) think the Scottish Parliament should have the power to call an indyref without the consent of Westminster.

I also see from the What Scotland Thinks site that there are Holyrood voting intention numbers in the YouGov poll, which are markedly better for the SNP than the Westminster numbers -

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:

SNP 50% (+1)

Labour 25% (-1)

Conservatives 13% (-)

Liberal Democrats 7% (-1)

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:

SNP 40% (+2)

Labour 24% (-)

Conservatives 13% (-1)

Greens 11% (-1)

Liberal Democrats 6% (-2)

Seats projection: SNP 67 (+3), Labour 31 (+9), Conservatives 15 (-16), Greens 11 (+3), Liberal Democrats 5 (+1)

SNP OVERALL MAJORITY OF 5 SEATS

So a clear majority for pro-indy parties on the popular vote for the list ballot, and probably on the constituency ballot too once we discover the breakdown for "other parties".  It looks like Labour's surge may have stalled before they even came close to seriously threatening the SNP in the Holyrood arena. Incidentally, there's 8% support for "other parties" on the Westminster ballot, so it's possible that pro-indy parties are closer to 50% for a Westminster plebiscite election than we initially assumed.  In theory they could even be on 51% if the Greens have all 8% for the "others", but obviously that's very unlikely.

I hear on the grapevine that Panelbase currently have a Scottish poll in the field, so as long as it's not a private poll (always a real possibility) we may have at least one more independence poll before the end of the year.  That keeps open the scenario that the average Yes vote in this calendar year may yet exceed 50%.  The poll apparently has a lot of questions about the trans issue and about Alba, and yet I'm told Alba are not offered as an option on the main voting intention questions.  If I was going to hazard a guess, I would say that this is perhaps a multi-client survey with the questions about gender and Alba coming from Stuart Campbell and/or Alba itself, and with the voting intention questions coming from another client, possibly the Sunday Times.

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Source: The media have been fibbing to us again over the last 24 hours: in fact, the YouGov poll does NOT show the public oppose a de facto referendum - it was instead a ridiculous question about Rhodesian-style UDI