A new Survation poll on independence is out today, and seems to have been commissioned by the Courier. It shows only margin of error changes from the last Survation poll.
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 49% (-1)
No 51% (+1)
Whether or not this poll shows No “moving into the lead” is in the eye of the beholder, because No had a slight lead in the previous poll before Don’t Knows were stripped out, but on the headline numbers the result was rounded to 50-50. The sequence of results for Yes on the last three Survation polls (the first of which was commissioned by this blog) has been 51-50-49, and although that could be indicative of a genuine decline, it’s also consistent with a stable position, with the apparent minor changes being caused by sampling variation.
Survation have been a relatively No-friendly pollster since the 2019 election, so it’s encouraging that neither they nor YouGov have shown Yes falling below 49%, and it may be that we’ve bottomed out at around that level – which is good, because that’s only four or five points below the all-time highs with those firms. The only recent poll that purported to show a figure of less than 49% was the notorious #Matchettgate fake poll in Scotland on Sunday.
It should be stressed, incidentally, that today’s poll is not the most recent poll on independence. The BMG poll had slightly more up-to-date fieldwork, and showed Yes ahead by 52% to 48%.
It looks like there’s a 53% to 47% lead for independence in the Survation poll on a hypothetical question assuming that an independent Scotland would rejoin the EU – which, let’s be honest, is a pretty reasonable assumption. The Holyrood numbers have the SNP on course for an overall majority, with Labour overtaking the Tories to move into second place – although that has to be put in the context of Survation being more favourable of late to Labour than other firms have been.
