As ever, when I take a few days off from the blog, there’s a lot to catch up on. There was the Survation poll on independence published on Thursday which reported a 52% result for Yes (with don’t knows removed). It’s worth pointing out that Survation is one of those polling companies which uses weighting by the outcome of the 2014 referendum as part of its methodology. As I’ve written on this blog a few times before, twelve years on from the referendum this methodological practice has the effect of artificially boosting the reported No result while reducing the Yes result. With more up to date weighting which accurately reflects the demographic realities of Scotland in 2026, the true Yes result from this poll would be a couple of percentage points higher. However it’s certainly note worthy that support for independence has now reached such a level that even traditionally “No-friendly” polling companies like Survation are now publishing polls with a headline figure that shows a majority for independence.
That just leaves YouGov as an outlier, the only remaining polling company whose polls on Scottish independence still report headline figures with a majority opposed to independence. Not only does YouGov still employ the increasingly discredited weighting by the outcome of the 2014 referendum, the company’s other methodological practices on this question raise serious questions about whether YouGov is really engaged in attempting to discern a true picture on the state of public support for Scottish independence or whether it is more interested in providing comforting headlines for the overwhelmingly anti-independence newspapers which commission its polls.
In other news, the SNP has come in for a fair bit of criticism for apparently closing down attempts by members and branches to have a debate on independence strategy at the upcoming SNP conference in Aberdeen in October. According to a leaked version of the draft agenda for the conference, which has been seen by The National, none of the many submissions on independence strategy which have been submitted by various branches have made it onto the draft agenda.
I’m not an SNP member and make no pretence of being familiar with internal SNP procedure, but it appears that what has been leaked is a draft agenda, not a finalised agenda. To an outsider that suggests that the final agenda for the conference could be different from a leaked early draft for a conference which is still a month and a half away.
That said, in my opinion as an independence supporter who has remained supportive of the SNP throughout an exceptionally difficult few years, the party must allow its members to discuss and debate independence strategy at the party conference, after all, what else is the party for? Being perceived to close down debate on this key issue could do huge damage to trust in the party at a time when supporters are slowly healing from an incredibly difficult few years and could risk alienating supporters who kept faith with the SNP as the only credible political vehicle for delivering Scottish independence during a time when loud siren voices from other parts of the independence movement strongly criticised them for doing so.
The SNP leadership cannot make the mistake of retreating into its comfort zone and ceasing to aggressive push the issue of independence now that the election is safely out of the way.
There are advantages and disadvantages to using an election as a de-facto referendum, the main advantage is that it wrests the initiative away from Westminster and neuters its veto on an independence referendum. That’s an immense political advantage particularly if the pro-independence parties could agree to contest that de-facto referendum as a pan-Yes coalition encompassing all the pro-independence parties plus representatives from civic Scotland. Even the plausible threat of using the next Westminster general election as a de-facto referendum could help to create pressure on the UK Government to come to the table and agree a definitive route to independence referendums for Scotland and Wales as well as a unification referendum for Northern Ireland.
There are however also huge risks and disadvantages with a de-facto referendum strategy and we need to be honest about these. The first is the difficulty in securing agreement between the pro-independence parties. In the absence of such an electoral pact that would mean contesting the de-facto referendum on a party political basis. As a result, the estimated one quarter to one third of Labour voters in Scotland who support independence, the quarter of Reform UK voters in Scotland who support independence and the one sixth of Lib Dem voters in Scotland who support independence would most likely continue to vote for their party of preference, depriving Yes of the overall majority of votes cast which it needs in order to declare victory and deprive the anti-independence parties of the wriggle room and goalpost shifting which they have used to their advantage so far.
There is also the risk that the UK Government would simply ignore a de-facto referendum result as it has ignored the outcome of the last two Scottish Parliament elections. It would be aided and abetted in this by the BBC and the majority of the press in Scotland.
There are real pros and cons here and it’s important for the membership of the SNP to be able to discuss and debate them and to come up with a strategy which is best for Scotland.
Meanwhile, the message that the SNP, the Scottish Greens, and the rest of the independence movement need to hammer home is that constitutional matters are not some arcane distraction from bread and butter politics, the issue of independence goes to the very heart of bread and butter politics as at its core it is about where power lies, who wields it, and in whose interests the state operates. This is fundamental to bread and butter politics. A narrow focus on bread and butter politics in a state in which power and influence are heavily skewed in the interests of entrenched power and the super-rich is merely a debate about the distribution of the crumbs from the table of the wealthy.
After wrestling for hours with PayPal, I have finally compiled a list of the emails of almost everyone who makes a regular monthly donation to the blog and will soon launch the weekly bonus premium email article for those who make a monthly contribution to the blog. I had hoped to launch this in June but unfortunately it will be delayed for a while. There are a number of people whose emails I am unable to find. Some people donate monthly by Ko-Fi, one makes a monthly donation to last year’s GoFundMe fundraiser, a few people make monthly payments directly by bank transfer. I cannot access the email addresses of any of these people and so cannot add them to the new mailing list. If you are one of these folk, please email me at weegingerbook@yahoo.com and I’ll add you to the mailing list.
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