Unsurprisingly, Scotland’s media ─ mainstream, alternative and social ─ is awash with speculation about who will be Nicola Sturgeon’s successor as SNP leader, First Minister and de facto head on the independence movement now that she has chosen to step down. Much of this speculation is poorly informed, based on no more than a potential candidate being likeable or having demonstrated an aptitude for a particular aspect of politics. To make a reasoned assessment of candidates for these roles it must surely be necessary to first define what qualities and capacities are required. And to do that we need to develop some understanding of what the job entails.
Collectively, the three roles involve a huge number and wide variety of tasks and responsibilities. But foremost in many (most?) minds will surely be the new incumbent’s responsibility for dealing with the constitutional issue. To understand what this involves, and thereby what kind of person the job demands, we need to know two fundamental things. We need to understand what is the destination. And we need to understand what is the starting point.
The destination may seem obvious – independence. But what kind of independence? Are there different kinds? Does it matter how it is achieved. These are questions for another time, however. Today, we look at the starting point. We ask where stands Scotland now? To this end, I’m grateful to Stephen Duncan who has delved into the polling data so as we might have a better appreciation of the circumstances which will confront the new leader of the party of independence.
Those Opinion Polls: Vacillation breeds Oscillation
At the time of the uptick in YES sentiment registered in 7 successive surveys in the wake of the UK Supreme Court ruling (23rd November 2022) against the Scottish Parliament’s ability to pass legislation for an Independence referendum in Scotland I warned that this may be temporary unless the SNP/Scottish Government were able to ‘catch the wind’ and harness the momentum generated. Well, as with other events like Brexit and the COVID pandemic when pro-Independence support spiked this now seems to have fizzled out with 4 out of the last 5 opinion polls published indicating that NO had retaken the lead.
Given the foregoing I have undertaken an assessment of the movement in YES support over time and have compared and contrasted shifts in the run up from the beginning of 2012 to the Independence Referendum held on 18th September 2014 with the 8 plus years since that event took place. The analysis uses opinion surveys from all polling firms publishing on the question and calculates both simple and weighted (by sample volume) averages for each of the years. (This has the benefit of balancing out the biases inherent in different polling firms’ methodologies).
Summary of Findings
- The step increase in YES support through 2012-13 accelerated in the first 9 months of 2014, a trajectory that was maintained in the immediate post-referendum phase during quarter 4 2014.
- YES support has consistently been higher in the polls by around 4% on average in absolute terms and circa 8% relatively compared to the Referendum result.
- Pro-Independence sentiment has fluctuated since the end of 2014 but the underlying level has remained fairly static.
The detailed analysis behind these inferences cover the period January 2012 through February 2023.
Analysis
As it became clear in January 2012 due to the announcements by (then) Prime Minister David Cameron and (then) First Minister Alex Salmond that there would be a referendum following the SNP’s majority win at the Scottish Election the previous year it would seem logical to take 2012 as the start point for the run up to the election. (The YES campaign launched the following May and the Edinburgh Agreement confirming the terms of the referendum was signed by the PM and FM in October of the same year). This period ended on 18th September 2014, the date of the Scottish Independence Referendum and will be considered as pre-Referendum while the time since 18th September 2014 to date (or 15th February 2023 at time of publishing) is described as the post-Referendum. (During the year of the Referendum 69 surveys were conducted “PreRef” and 15 were carried out “PostRef”).
The average YES support recorded across all polling firms by period are shown below:
| January 2012-February 2023: Surveys across all Pollsters | |||
| Yes%: Average | |||
| Year | UnWeighted | Weighted | # Polls |
| 2012 | 37.83% | 37.82% | 8 |
| 2013 | 39.73% | 39.70% | 27 |
| 2014:PreRef | 44.60% | 44.77% | 69 |
| 2014:PostRef | 50.32% | 50.37% | 5 |
| 2015 | 48.91% | 48.88% | 20 |
| 2016 | 47.68% | 47.40% | 25 |
| 2017 | 45.25% | 45.20% | 25 |
| 2018 | 45.66% | 45.66% | 15 |
| 2019 | 47.55% | 46.63% | 14 |
| 2020 | 53.05% | 52.82% | 23 |
| 2021 | 49.69% | 50.08% | 52 |
| 2022 | 49.46% | 49.60% | 28 |
| 2023 | 47.60% | 47.04% | 4 |
The 3 main observations I make are:
- The step increase in YES support through 2012-13 accelerated in the first 9 months of 2014, a trajectory that was maintained in the immediate post-referendum phase during quarter 4 2014.
The table and line graph show a marked increase YES support in both 2013 and, especially, 2014 (PreRef):
| Pre-2014 Referendum: Surveys across all Pollsters | |||
| Yes%: Average | |||
| Year | UnWeighted | Weighted | # Polls |
| 2012 | 37.83% | 37.82% | 8 |
| 2013 | 39.73% | 39.70% | 27 |
| 2014:PreRef | 44.60% | 44.77% | 69 |
This is clearer still when you look at the absolute and, especially, the proportionate changes in YES support:
Turning to the period on period changes the accelerating upward trend prior to the Referendum was carried over and beyond 18th September 2014:
| Pre-2014 Referendum: Surveys across all Pollsters | ||||
| Yes%: Average – Period on Period Changes | ||||
| Absolute | Proportionate | |||
| Year | UnWeighted | Weighted | # Polls | Referendum |
| 2013 | 1.90% | 1.87% | 5.04% | 4.95% |
| 2014:PreRef | 4.87% | 5.07% | 12.25% | 12.78% |
| 2014:PostRef | 5.72% | 5.60% | 12.83% | 12.51% |
The continued surge into the fourth quarter of 2014 can most likely be put down to a combination of deferred campaign momentum, ‘buyer’s remorse’ among some NO voters and an adverse reaction to David Cameron’s English Votes for English Laws (EVEL) speech on 19th September 2014.
[Note: In all calculations, and as standard, I have excluded those that Don’t Know, Won’t Say and Won’t Vote].
- YES support has consistently been higher in the polls by around 4% on average in absolute terms and circa 8% relatively compared to the Referendum result.
The following table and line graph illustrates that YES support has remained higher than the result posted in the Referendum (44.70%) for the entire subsequent period:
| Post-2014 Referendum: Surveys across all Pollsters | ||||
| Yes%: Average – Changes since 2014 | ||||
| Absolute | Proportionate | |||
| Year | UnWeighted | Weighted | UnWeighted | Weighted |
| 2014:PostRef | 5.62% | 5.67% | 12.57% | 12.68% |
| 2015 | 4.21% | 4.18% | 9.42% | 9.34% |
| 2016 | 2.98% | 2.70% | 6.68% | 6.04% |
| 2017 | 0.55% | 0.50% | 1.23% | 1.13% |
| 2018 | 0.96% | 0.96% | 2.14% | 2.16% |
| 2019 | 2.85% | 1.93% | 6.38% | 4.32% |
| 2020 | 8.35% | 8.12% | 18.68% | 18.16% |
| 2021 | 4.99% | 5.38% | 11.17% | 12.03% |
| 2022 | 4.76% | 4.90% | 10.65% | 10.96% |
| 2023 | 2.90% | 2.34% | 6.50% | 5.24% |
| Mean: | 3.82% | 3.67% | 8.54% | 8.21% |
While YES support in the period since 18th September 2014 has remained above that recorded in the Referendum a wavy pattern can be discerned from the surge immediately after the vote to the dip between 2015 and 2017 before rising again to a peak during the COVID pandemic of 2020-21 then falling back to its current level below the quarter 4 2014-2015 survey results.
[Note: In all calculations, and as standard, I have excluded those that Don’t Know, Won’t Say and Won’t Vote].
- Pro-Independence sentiment has fluctuated since the end of 2014 but the underlying level has remained fairly static.
The table and line graph below depicts a cyclical pattern YES support over the period:
| Post-2014 Referendum: Surveys across all Pollsters | |||
| Yes%: Average | |||
| Year | UnWeighted | Weighted | # Polls |
| 2014:PostRef | 50.32% | 50.37% | 5 |
| 2015 | 48.91% | 48.88% | 20 |
| 2016 | 47.68% | 47.40% | 25 |
| 2017 | 45.25% | 45.20% | 25 |
| 2018 | 45.66% | 45.66% | 15 |
| 2019 | 47.55% | 46.63% | 14 |
| 2020 | 53.05% | 52.82% | 23 |
| 2021 | 49.69% | 50.08% | 52 |
| 2022 | 49.46% | 49.60% | 28 |
| 2023 | 47.60% | 47.04% | 4 |
Looking at these from a changes perspective the movement in YES support are even more noticeable:
| Post-2014 Referendum: Surveys across all Pollsters | ||||
| Yes%: Average – Changes since 2014 (PostRef) | ||||
| Absolute | Proportionate | |||
| Year | UnWeighted | Weighted | UnWeighted | Weighted |
| 2015 | -1.41% | -1.44% | -2.80% | -2.87% |
| 2016 | -2.63% | -2.92% | -5.24% | -5.80% |
| 2017 | -5.07% | -5.12% | -10.07% | -10.17% |
| 2018 | -4.66% | -4.66% | -9.27% | -9.25% |
| 2019 | -2.77% | -3.69% | -5.50% | -7.33% |
| 2020 | 2.73% | 2.50% | 5.42% | 4.97% |
| 2021 | -0.63% | -0.24% | -1.24% | -0.48% |
| 2022 | -0.86% | -0.72% | -1.71% | -1.43% |
| 2023 | -2.72% | -3.28% | -5.40% | -6.51% |
A stand out feature of this period is that it is only 2020 that registered an increase in support with reference to the immediate post-Referendum period in 2014. This coincided with the worst days of the COVID pandemic during which the First Minister appeared on national television to provide daily updates and for many her reassuring presence and presentational skills undoubtedly boosted YES support. The effect, evidently, was not sustained.
[Note: In all calculations, and as standard, I have excluded those that Don’t Know, Won’t Say and Won’t Vote].
Conclusions
The analysis of the polling time-series over the January 2012-February 2023 would suggest that the combination of having a target to aim at, a focussed campaign and a united movement with single goal and common purpose can generate enormous momentum as evidenced by the pro-Independence surge during the 2012-2014 period. It demonstrated what is possible when the movement gets its act together and is led by an inspiring and determined leadership group with a plan.
Without that clarity of direction there is drift, the vacillation among our political leaders being reflected in the oscillation recorded in opinion polls.
Sources
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_on_Scottish_independence
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2014_Scottish_independence_referendum
Ipsos UK: https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/news-and-events/news
Panelbase: https://drg.global/our-work/political-polls/
Survation: https://www.survation.com/
YouGov: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/overview
Peter A Bell 
Peter – ‘no conclusion final’.
Well, while I admire your hope that the SNP can get somehow its mojo back after years of prevarication and actually achieve independence, my conclusion is that it will not. Almost all of its MP’s and MSP are floating at the bottom of a poisonous well. A few would like to climb out into the fresh air and sunlight but, hey, they have a ‘livelihood’ (Ms Cherry) to sustain.
The SNP are finished as a vehicle for independence. There is no way back for them. The party is over and time to call it a day…
Anyone, like you, who seriously wants the restoration of Scotland’s independence, now needs to look outwith the present political establishments. Salvo’s resurrection of the Claim of Right is a ray of light in an otherwise very dark landscape. Yet this ray of light is only faraway on a distant horizon at present.
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I’m not ready to give up on independence.
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That’s the spirit Peter, like the indy die-hards there’s something inside us that’s so strong that we can never give up on the cause., even if it came to the passing out of the rifles, we’d be in the line, that’ show deep it runs for some.
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Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
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Interesting analysis – nicely presented too. I have to echo what Robert is saying. The ability of the SNP to run a focussed campaign and pull everything together is simply not there. Could it be developed? Sure, but it will take time and they can’t do it alone. Sharing the stage is something the current crop of politicians simply aren’t good at. Look at the frosty reception Sara Salyers got from Alba. Could the SNP remake itself? Sure, but since it’s full of people who would actively work against that, it seems unlikely.
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See my reply to Robert.
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I don’t think anybody is giving up however it’s important to realise the scale of the climb. Everything could change with an influx of new blood and fresh thinking. Indeed, if you look at the latest post from Wings, the battlefield is already being shaped.
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Stuart.
The SNP are finished, they’re a busted flush.
“I’ve been contacted by a lawyer who has been checking the SNP constitution this morning. And here’s the problem – in an earlier round of abandoning SNP democracy the constitution was amended to enable the NEC to rewrite the constitution at will. It is hard to tell from the current mess of constitution what is actually legal or not – but then it doesn’t make much difference because the NEC can just change it until it says what they want it to say. That may mean that legal routes (such as an interdict) will fail, making it even more important there is a mass outcry. And to my many friends in the SNP, understand this – if the NEC of an organisation can rewrite the constitution at will, you don’t have a constitution, you become an entity wholly governed by your NEC. In that world nothing is ever against the rules unless the NEC wants it to be against the rules. It turns out that even I forgot how bad SNP ‘democracy’ had become.”
http://robinmcalpine.org/stop-murrells-corruption-now/
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It seems as though the SNP’s NEC have adopted the approach of the British with respect to democracy.
The similarities with Orwell’s “Animal Farm” are uncanny.
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The destination and the starting point.
The starting point for me is to persuade a sufficient number of voters that the case for independence is made out and have them with you on your journey towards your chosen destination.
At the moment a vote for the SNP is too often seen as a vote for independence, when that is not necessarily the case. It is often a vote of last resort, the voters having rejected all other parties, and ending up with no alternative.
If every vote for the SNP could really be a vote for independence, that would be a huge step in the right direction for me if I was the leader of the Party. And your graphs would show it.
Nicola Sturgeon hinted at the difficulty she had in being First Minister of a Scotland in which the majority of the people were not in favour of independence. She recognised that the duty of a Party Leader was narrower than the duty of a First Minister, although she paid only lip service to this distinction.
8 years have been wasted in neglecting to build the solid foundations on which the desire for independence must be built. The Scottish people are sensible, pragmatic, and conservative minded, and will respond to sensible, pragmatic, and conservative leadership .
Regretfully, I see no-one in the suggested list of potential candidates for Leader who has the ability to turn a vote for the SNP into a true vote for independence. Another 8 years of frustration looms on the horizon unless there is a seismic shift in the Scottish political landscape.
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That’s the attitude that got us where we are. about four years ago, people started to see that the SNP had lost its way. Instead of knuckling down to getting the party back on track, most of those people just walked away. Gave up! Some of us stuck around in the hope we could fix things. But we were a minority in the party by that time and Sturgeon’s clique had all the positions of power. I finally concluded that I might be able to do more from the outside, and quit the party. But it was no use. The Yes movement was so riven by factionalism that it was weak and ineffective.
And so it has continued. Everybody talking about solidarity. Nobody prepared to make the necessary compromises. Everybody saying we need unity. Everybody insisting it must be on their terms. Potential remedies have been mooted. But all the people who talked about unity would only sign up if some other faction was excluded. Divide and rule. Except our rulers didn’t have any of the dividing. We did it to ourselves. And while we were doing it, nobody needed to feel guilty. Because they could always blame the SNP.
It has all been very painful to watch. Even now, the situation is not entirely hopeless. Great things can be achieved against terrifying odds when the people combine. The choice has been made not to combine. And it is a choice. The larger part has made a choice not to do the one thing that would be effective. That is the aggregate of lots of small, selfish, stupid choices. They all put in a colour, and it comes out grey.
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I don’t see how the general Yes movement can be blamed for things as they are today.
I don’t see what ordinary folks (non elected politicians that is) can or were able to do.
It was the political side that helped create these various divisions, and the senior ones in SNP who helped create the divisions leading to some going to the ALBA group.
The First Minister didn’t do much to help keep the unity everyone now insists we need.
People voted for SNP in the hope they would get us to Independence, and those voters have to this point, been betrayed.
I wouldn’t blame that on those who voted SNP.
As to the future, I see the comments about how SNP is over, etc, etc, and it can look like it at this moment in time.
But time as you have said often enough, isn’t something Scotland has.
We must still rely on SNP, at least for the present.
But if all these calls to delay, and delay forever and ever from senior SNP politicians are heeded, and SNP does indeed delay even more, then there will be that backlash I have predicted against them.
The great concern we have is that if folks choose to vote for alternatives, it can let the pro London lot get back into power.
SNP has played on that fear, very effectively but as I say, have done nothing much to repay those votes in the way we hoped for. Tho they have certainly been far better for Scotland than any of the pro London groups.
One of the main considerations for SNP is to get a person in charge, who can keep the voters onside, and as well as to push for Independence.
The last thing Scotland needs, is voters turning back to Labour.
And so we need that new person to make the points about Brexit, etc, forcibly, and why voting turning back to a pro London party is a waste of time.
But then, they also have to show us why voting SNP in future,, will not be a waste of time, either!
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Thank you for your considered reply.
We are at a point where the independence parties in Scotland have failed to convince the average voter that independence would be better than what we have now. If they all buried the hatchet (not in each other) and worked together, I wonder what difference that would have to make voters change their minds, without a demonstrable way of showing them how much better things could be.
“Great things can be achieved against terrifying odds when the people combine”.
I agree. For me that doesn’t mean the combining of political parties as much as the Scottish voters combining in sufficient numbers to show their desire for independence.
The canny Scottish voters are wary of being sold a pup and will look for a level of proof before casting their votes for something untried and untested. Pointing out the defects of a system is all well and good, but people look for more when being asked to make a journey into the unknown.
“Trust me, this is how it will be” won’t wash, especially coming from a politician. Something more concrete is needed and that has been severely lacking for the past 8 years.
Those already persuaded that independence is the right thing need no further encouragement. They already have the vision without the need for any tangible proof. Much more needs to be done to convince the ‘Nos’ and the ‘Not Sure’s.
You have the vision. So do I, and I sometimes get frustrated that others can’t feel the same way. But I can’t really criticise them when they say ‘prove it’.
When we get to the position that we have ‘proved it’ I will no longer be about to see it. But I hope you will be there to put up another series of graphs showing a sharp, sustained increase for ‘Yes’.
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If it doesn’t happen soon, it doesn’t happen. Quite why folk imagine time doesn’t matter is a mystery to me. But not as much of a mystery as them imagining that the British state will be idle while all this gentle persuading goes on.
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We should remember that Scots have been subjected to over three centuries of colonial and cultural oppression/cultural assimilation, which has also resulted in significant ongoing demographic change, with millions of Scots shipped out of Scotland, and now a historically low birth rate, as well as a large meritocratic elite coming in, mainly from England. These are the main reasons c.50% of Scotland’s population today identify as Brits, not Scots. Had Scotland never been colonised our population today would be much bigger and would also be 90%+ Scots. Once the indigenous people fall below 50% of the population, any requirement for a +50% vote for self-determination becomes less likely. Ask New Caledonia.
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