I’d been thinking over the last few days that we were strangely light on polls given how dramatic the recent events have been, but today has made up for that – we already have our second poll of the day, this time from Opinium.
Should Scotland be an independent country? (Opinium / Sky News)
Yes 51% (-)
No 49% (-)
So no change from the last Opinium poll – but across all firms, this is the seventh poll in a row to show Yes on 50% or higher, and the sixth out of seven to show an outright Yes lead of some description. It’s arguably no longer really accurate to say that “the polls are broadly showing it’s 50-50”. There’s a case to be made that the general picture is now of a Yes lead, albeit a very slim one.
Scottish Parliament constituency vote:
SNP 53% (+7)
Conservatives 21% (-3)
Labour 18% (-2)
Liberal Democrats 6% (-)
Scottish Parliament regional list vote:
SNP 44% (+2)
Conservatives 22% (-)
Labour 17% (-2)
Greens 7% (-)
Liberal Democrats 5% (-)
Alba 2% (+2)
There have now been five polls which offered Alba as an option, and that makes it possible to offer a slightly more confident estimate of the party’s support as it seeks to establish itself. The median Alba vote share is 3%, and the mean average is 3.4%. As mentioned in the previous post, that’s the sort of level of support at which the Greens and the SSP won one seat apiece in the 1999 election. So if things stay the same, we’re falling between two stools – Alba aren’t doing quite well enough to win a significant number of seats or to even be sure of winning any seats at all, but they are doing well enough that it would be ludicrous to pretend that they aren’t in serious contention to win seats (even though a great many people are attempting precisely that pretence).
As I’ve said a few times now, if people are concerned about Alba votes being wasted and thus indirectly helping the unionist side, one logical way of resolving the problem is to campaign hard and spread the word and do everything we can to make sure that Alba have reached at least 5% by polling day. That option may be a lot more realistic than lecturing the existing Alba supporters about how they have to set aside all their misgivings over GRA reform, or the Hate Crime Bill, or the lack of progress towards an independence referendum, and obediently toddle back to the SNP on the list. It’s hard enough for those people to vote SNP even on the constituency ballot, but they’re doing that for the specific reason that Alba have recommended it as part of a two-pronged strategy for securing an independence parliament.
The extremely good news from this poll is that the SNP’s constituency vote has shot right up, and if by any chance they can maintain that sort of popularity, the question of wasted votes on the list may not even matter. But as we saw in 2016, it’s phenomenally hard for any party to maintain 50%+ support in the heat of a campaign – it’s like gravity will always pull them back.
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