AND so we return to the little pantomime that predictably occurs every few months.
Once again, the Unionist campaign group Scotland in Union has commissioned a Survation poll and is trying to give the impression that it shows substantial opposition to independence, well in excess of the 55% No vote achieved in the referendum a decade ago.
But as with all of the previous Scotland in Union polls, that's not the case at all, because the question asked didn't even mention independence.
It instead rather vaguely asked respondents whether they wanted Scotland to "remain part of the United Kingdom" or to "leave" – a formulation that since 2019 has consistently produced a "leave" vote in the low 40s after "don't knows" are removed.
By contrast, support for actual independence in conventional polls since 2019 has typically hovered in a much higher range between the mid 40s and the mid 50s. So the 41% for "leave" in the new poll is bang in line with previous comparable results, and is thus perfectly consistent with real independence support holding steady, perhaps in the high 40s zone that has been typical over the last few months.
When poll questions with different wordings repeatedly produce such radically different results, the most likely explanation is that one of the questions is proving confusing to respondents. It's probably not unreasonable to suggest that the crystal-clear standard question "should Scotland be an independent country?" is far less likely to be befuddling voters than Scotland in Union's beloved non-specific question about "leaving".
Precisely what it is about their question that is leading people astray can only be speculated about, but one very plausible possibility is that the mention of the "United Kingdom" leads a small but significant proportion of respondents to wrongly assume that they are being asked whether Scotland should abandon the British monarchy. If so, a few per cent of the voters who want an independent Scotland with the monarchy retained, and who therefore show up as Yes voters in conventional polls, may feel compelled to say they want to "remain part of the United Kingdom" in Scotland in Union polls.
In a nutshell, a poorly-worded question is producing almost meaningless results. It's something of a mystery why Survation, a polling firm who are usually sticklers for clear questions that do not intentionally steer respondents in one direction or another, ever agreed to Scotland in Union's proposed question – although once the precedent had been set, it may have been difficult for them to refuse repeat runnings of the question.
But it's certainly a question that would be very unlikely to be approved by the Electoral Commission for a future referendum, because it leaves an obvious point of ambiguity hanging in the air – what would actually happen to Scotland once it "leaves the United Kingdom"? Would it become a crown dependency like Jersey, or join another pre-existing state? Whether Unionists like it or not, the question in any independence referendum will inevitably have to mention independence.
Scotland in Union's new poll can, however, be taken more seriously on the Holyrood voting intention numbers, which are not quite as favourable for the SNP as the results from the recent Norstat poll.
Labour are level on the constituency ballot and one point ahead on the regional list ballot, which would probably be enough to install Anas Sarwar in Bute House as first minister. But with Keir Starmer himself predicting that his decisions in government will make Labour increasingly unpopular, it may well be that a roughly level-pegging position at this stage means that the SNP should still be seen as clear favourites to win in two years' time.
