UK Attitudes to Scottish Independence

Ipsos Moro released their latest poll on 15th November. They polled nearly 7,000 people aged 16+, including 2,086 Scots. And it has thrown up some interesting findings.

(WeegieFifer has kindly shared her own blog post with us. Thank you!)

Independence Support

Starting off with their questions about support for independence. They asked everyone in the poll on whether they’d prefer Scots to vote for independence. Here are the responses:

So amongst Scots, 50% would prefer a vote for independence. Does that feel a bit disappointing? I felt that until I looked at the rest of the responses. Only 43% in favour of staying in UK, 2% don’t know, and 4% don’t mind. If you take the don’t know and don’t minds out of the equation that’s 54 /46 in favour of independence.

The Don’t Knows are about the same across UK at 2-3%. About the Don’t Minds I can understand that in rUK there will be people who don’t mind either way. I am a bit surprised that anyone in Scotland – 4% – doesn’t mind but maybe that says more about me than them! Outside of Scotland, Northern Ireland has the highest preference for Scottish independence. Given that Sinn Fein is now the biggest party in NI that’s maybe no surprise.

The likelihood of UK changing in next decade, either through Scottish independence or Irish re-unification, seems to be pretty well accepted all over UK.

Economic Outlook

Ipsos also asked a series of questions about economic outlook. The results right across UK are pretty pessimistic, at least over next year.

But what stands out for me are the responses about the impact of independence on our economy. In rUK, the sense is that we’ll be worse off economically with independence. But in Scotland, 43% think we’ll be better off and another 10% think there won’t be any difference.

Those two figures strike me as a more important figures than support for independence itself. In the 2014 referendum, the Better Together campaign ran story after story about how badly we’d be hit economically by independence. They have kept that story-line going ever since but maybe it is now losing its fear factor?

And finally, Ipsos also asked how what effect independence would have on the rUK economies. About a third thought it would make no difference. But between 37-45% thought they’d be worse off. Interesting eh?

I’ll leave this for now. But I bet there is more detail in the full poll spreadsheet. So look out for a follow up to this!

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