Many thanks to Paul Kirkwood, who has just pointed out to me that a new Find Out Now poll on Scottish independence was released last night on Twitter. Two versions of the result are given, both with a Yes lead – one is weighted by recalled 2014 indyref vote, and the other is not. Judging by what happened last time, Find Out Now will probably specify the former as the headline numbers, in which case it’s…
Should Scotland be an independent country? (Find Out Now / Independent Voices, 5th-12th September 2023)
Yes 49.4%
No 46.2%
A rough recalculation suggests that if Don’t Knows are stripped out, and if rounding to the nearest whole number is done, the result is –
Yes 52%
No 48%
This continues the long-running pattern that every single Find Out Now poll that has ever been conducted on the subject shows a pro-independence majority. In other words, if Find Out Now’s methodology is accurate, independence is undeniably the settled will of the people of Scotland.
This poll hasn’t been widely reported yet – if it’s even on The National’s website I can’t spot it. [UPDATE: The National posted a report on the poll literally ten minutes after I published this blogpost!] But there’s no real doubt that the poll is genuine, because the Twitter account that revealed the numbers is run by a person who commissioned a previous Find Out Now poll a few months ago.
What makes the result particularly significant is that Find Out Now is of course the pollster of choice for a number of unionists – the Daily Express once commissioned a Find Out Now poll on independence, and Blair McDougall of Better Together fame recently commissioned a Find Out Now poll which was intended (ironically) to shore up Humza Yousaf’s position, due to Labour’s fear that the far more popular Kate Forbes could soon take over as SNP leader. So unionists are certainly in no position to try to question the credibility of the Yes lead.
I’ll update this post with more details if I can find any.
