[SCOT goes POP!] BOMBSHELL Scottish poll rocks Westminster: firmly No-friendly pollster YouGov shows the No lead has been reduced to a barely-there three points, while the SNP and Greens are on course for a PRO-INDEPENDENCE MAJORITY at next year's Hol

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BOMBSHELL Scottish poll rocks Westminster: firmly No-friendly pollster YouGov shows the No lead has been reduced to a barely-there three points, while the SNP and Greens are on course for a PRO-INDEPENDENCE MAJORITY at next year's Holyrood election

It's 2.20am as I sit down to write this, so probably not the ideal time to embark on making a video (you wouldn't believe how long even the shortest of videos take to make, once you take into account the preparation, the editing and the processing), but I must nevertheless bring to your attention the information that Calum Findlay revealed in the comments section of the previous post.  The Scottish Election Study has published its latest Scottish Opinion Monitor (SCOOP) poll.  These polls are basically just regular YouGov polls but with two thrilling twists - the media don't seem to report them very much, and the data tables don't bother to mention what the results are with undecided voters excluded.

The most significant results are on the independence question.  YouGov has in recent years reverted to its former status as a very firmly No-friendly pollster, and that remains the case in this poll because there is a No lead at a time when other polling firms are showing substantial Yes majorities.  However in a sense it corroborates the trend shown by those other firms because it shows a third successive reduction in the No lead (as far as YouGov polls are concerned, I mean) and leaves No with a mere three-point advantage, which is much lower than YouGov typically show.  As Calum points out, the fact that No even remain in the lead at all should be interpreted with caution because it's been partly caused by YouGov's reweighting of their raw data based on how people say they voted in the 2014 independence referendum - a practice that the UK's gold standard pollster Ipsos states is unwise because of the high risk of distortions caused by false recall.  

Should Scotland be an independent country? (YouGov, 10th-20th October 2025)

Yes 40% (-)

No 43% (-1)

If Don't Knows were stripped out, that would probably work out as Yes 48%, No 52%, which would be unchanged on the last YouGov poll due to rounding effects.

I've taken Calum's estimates of the Holyrood voting intention numbers with Don't Knows excluded and pumped them into a seats predictor, and they come out as: SNP 59, Reform UK 22, Labour 16, Greens 12, Liberal Democrats 10, Conservatives 10.  That's a very comfortable majority for pro-independence parties once the SNP and Greens are combined, but the SNP on their own are six seats short of a majority.  The lack of a single-party majority wouldn't be any sort of problem if the normal rules of democratic self-determination applied, but unfortunately the SNP have just self-imposed a new version of the 40% rule - a decision that we may all have cause to regret in six months' time.  But of course, as with every poll, this is just a snapshot and not a prediction of the final result.

And although this isn't a video, please feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel anyway, because I'm trying to get to 1000 subscribers as soon as possible!

Source: BOMBSHELL Scottish poll rocks Westminster: firmly No-friendly pollster YouGov shows the No lead has been reduced to a barely-there three points, while the SNP and Greens are on course for a PRO-INDEPENDENCE MAJORITY at next year's Holyrood election