 | 'The more the London Treasury tries to lay down the law to Scotland, the greater the support there will be for independence.' Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon MSP, 10 th April 2008. |  |
| 'The more the London Treasury tries to lay down the law to Scotland, the greater the support there will be for independence.' Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon MSP, 10 th April 2008. | |
A Scottish Opinion poll in the Daily Mail has shown that support for Independence has grown by ten points since the SNP took power. The poll has independence as neck and neck with the status quo.
Nicola Sturgeon MSP, SNP Depute Leader and Deputy First Minister said:
"The poll shows a surge in support for independence since last May, with it now running neck and neck with the status quo.
"It clearly demonstrates that support for equality for Scotland is steadily increasing, along with the SNP's poll ratings, and is being boosted by our solid record of delivery in office - including freezing the Council Tax, cutting business rates, abolishing prescription charges, and restoring free education in Scotland.
"The poll also suggests that the negative attitude being shown to the Scottish Government and to Scotland by Westminster is getting a strong reaction in Scotland.
"The more the London Treasury tries to lay down the law to Scotland, the greater the support there will be for independence.
"The unionist parties are running scared of democracy - they don't trust the people of Scotland to make the right decision - and no wonder, on the basis of these figures.
"The other parties are deeply split on the issue, and are finding it impossible to justify refusing the people of Scotland their basic democratic right."
The Scottish Opinion/Daily Mail poll asked if people approve or disapprove of Scotland becoming an independent country.The changes since the last identical poll in the Daily Mail (published on 10 August 2007) are in brackets.
Yes: 41% (+10)
No: 43% (-6)
Don't know: 16% (-4)
The SNP claimed yesterday that an apparent shift in public opinion in favour of independence was a reaction to the UK Government's "bullying" tactics.
Polls on the constitutional question are notoriously fickle but the significance of the latest finding is that the same polling organisation asked exactly the same question after an eight-month period.
Last August, Scottish Opinion asked people whether they approved or disapproved of Scotland becoming an independent country. At that stage only 31% of Scots were in favour of independence, with 49% opposed.
But when the pollsters asked the same question this month, those in favour had leapt 10 points to 41%, while those against had fallen six points to 43%.
This gap of just two points followed another poll last December by System 3/TNS for the Sunday Herald which showed the gap had narrowed from 15% to 4% in the previous three months.
Reacting to yesterday's poll, which was commissioned by the Daily Mail, SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon said: "The poll shows a surge in support for independence of 10 points since last summer, and is now running neck and neck with the status quo.
"It clearly demonstrates that support for equality for Scotland is on the increase, along with the SNP's poll ratings, and is being boosted by our solid record of delivery in office - including freezing the council tax, cutting business rates, abolishing prescription charges and restoring free education in Scotland.
"As the SNP administration delivers good government in the devolved areas, so we will build the case for Scotland to be governed equally well in all areas."
She claimed the poll indicated that the negative attitude being shown to the Scottish Government and Scotland by Westminster - on issues such as threatening to withhold council tax benefit and prisons spending - was getting a strong reaction in Scotland.
Ms Sturgeon argued that the Scottish public was reacting to Westminster's bullying stance, claiming: "The more the London Treasury tries to lay down the law to Scotland, the greater the support there will be for independence and equality for Scotland.
"The unionist parties are running scared of the right of the people to decide Scotland's future in a democratic referendum - and no wonder, on the basis of these figures. The other parties are deeply split on the issue, and are finding it impossible to justify refusing the people of Scotland that basic democratic right."
Rival parties dismissed the findings, arguing that the SNP still had no mandate to call for a referendum given that there was no majority for this at Holyrood.
In eight months support for Scottish independence has increased by 10%. Some 41% favour independence compared to 43% who support the union according to a new poll out today. That's still a minority but it's clear where the momentum lies. As the New Labour project unravels, the movement for self-determination is the beneficiary.
The poll, conducted by Progressive Scottish Opinion for that dowdy defender of the UK, the Scottish Daily Mail, shows a surge in support for independence at a time of growing credibility for the SNP and a collapse in Labour support, north and south of the border. Wendy Alexander's colleague, Jackie Baillie, stated: "What Scots want is to walk tall in the union, not walk out." The trouble is with the ongoing dispute over Scotland's missing £400m in council tax benefit, withheld by London, missing millions in prison upgrade payments and now the refusal of the Treasury to accept the local income tax proposals on which the SNP were elected, "walking tall" is hardly the impression given right now.
From the putative "British" Broadcasting Corporations forking out £200m for formula one, but being unable to find the coppers to fund terrestrial coverage the Scottish football team, to the embarrassing exposés of the Scottish Media Commission, the media experience is also vastly imbalanced. Last year Ofcom confirmed that the BBC's recent spending in Scotland, which has 8% of the UK's population and 12% of government spending, had fallen by some £20m to 3% of its total. The very experience of Britishness, in the past brought to us partly through the media, is unravelling. What once united now divides.
On the tax issue, it's clear that people resent the Scottish government being treated like a Treasury department. SNP policy is for a local income tax to replace council tax, set at three pence in the pound. David Cairns has tried to block the move, declaring it outside the scope of the Scotland Act. Here's the crunch. Whether the Treasury are technically right or not, it's difficult to see how they can oppose the wishes of an elected government.
Nicola Sturgeon, deputy first minister, said: "The more the London Treasury lays down the law the greater the support will be for independence and equality for Scotland." She's right. London Labour must initiate the joint devolution committee that should oversee these disputes, then they will have to decide how to negotiate on these and a host of other issues.
As the prison and tax payments storm brews, other problems lie ahead for the unionist trio of Nicol Stephen, Annabel Goldie and Wendy Alexander. Core Labour voters beguiled by SNP populism and defence of civic institutions, NHS services and ideals are finding it difficult to reconcile Wendy's recently discovered socialism and her stepping out with the formidable but electorally negligible Goldie.
This week Henry McLeish, the former Labour first minister who has enjoyed something of a resurgence in credibility since leaving office, backed SNP plans for a referendum on independence. Alexander's own husband denounced the Treasury's new tax on whisky duty. Professor Brian Ashcroft, who runs The Fraser of Allendar Institute is famous for the lecture in which he declared independence to be "the best option" economically. Ashcroft said: "It is understandable that the Scotch whisky industry should be 'astonished' by Alastair Darling's decision." It may be convenient mythmaking to portray Darling and Brown as Scottish cuckoos running a cabal at Westminster, but it doesn't look like that north of Carlisle. With friends like these, Alexander doesn't need to look far for enemies.
The poll is interesting for other reasons. It confirms the trend - witnessed over many years and contradicted only by Goldsmith's recent Britishness review - that support for independence is strongest among the young and skilled workers (47% in favour). The over 65s and the better-off are less supportive. Those in the oldest and youngest age groups were least in favour, with 50% of those aged 65 and over against independence and 48% of those in the 18 to 24 age range also opposed.
But how will this support stand up against coming recession and economic uncertainty? Will the security of the union seem undermined, as the UK is hit as hard as any other country, or will the leap of faith needed for another 10% to shift to independence seem impossible under the weight of economic fears and frailty? The real point of interest is with the 16% who - when given a straight choice - remain undecided.
If in another eight months - by Christmas - another 5% have shifted across to support independence, support for a referendum - currently at 85%, will be unstoppable.
It has long been the conventional wisdom in Scotland that Scottish voters are essentially constitutional opportunists. They may support the SNP in Holyrood elections, to "fight Scotland's corner", but in the end they will always vote to stay in the UK. Historically, support for independence has always lagged behind support for the Scottish National party. But perhaps for not much longer.
The TNS System Three poll in the Sunday Herald is the first to show a slim majority for independence along the lines proposed by the SNP. TNS asked the very question that the SNP intend to put in their constitutional referendum pencilled in for 2010: "The Scottish government should negotiate a settlement with the government of the United Kingdom so that Scotland becomes an independent state: Yes or No." Of those asked 41% said yes and 40% said no. Only last August, the same poll registered a 15% lead for the noes.
This follows a poll last week by Scottish Opinion which also showed support for independence surging over the 40% mark on the same question. We can't say conclusively that Scots have made up their minds to leave the UK, but there is no doubt that something is stirring in the undergrowth. It suggests that Alex Salmond may now be succeeding in his drive to convert support for his party into support for leaving the UK. The question is, why?
Now, obviously, the impressive performance of the SNP minority administration in Holyrood over the last year has had something to do with this. Salmond has delivered a masterclass in nationalist populism, scrapping university fees, abolishing prescription charges, freezing council tax. However, the really interesting question is why Gordon Brown, for all his immersion in Scottish politics, has had no answers to all this. Clearly, his mind has been elsewhere.
Most commentators believed that Scots would begin lose their affection for nationalism as soon as Gordon Brown became prime minister last autumn. After all, what better advert for the Union than to have one of the most respected Scottish politicians in Downing St. It showed that Scotland still mattered and that Scotland could have a voice at the very highest levels of UK government. Unfortunately, Brown has been an unmitigated disaster for Labour in Scotland, and not just because of his reputation as a ditherer.
He installed his protege Wendy Alexander - without an election - as leader of the Scottish party, and plunged Labour into its worst crisis since the resignation of Henry McLeish as first minister in 2001. Alexander was supposed to be the fresh new face of Labour, but she has emerged as a deluded opportunist who claims to be "socialist" while getting caught up in a row about illegal donations from property developers; who mounts campaigns against cuts in services even as her mentor, Gordon Brown, was cutting the funding to pay for them.
Brown's recent threats to cut off council tax benefits and to overrule the Scottish parliament's power to introduce local income tax were politically inept. This just allowed the SNP to paint Labour as neocolonial governors and defenders of the hated council tax. The increase in whisky duty in the budget was so unpopular that even Wendy Alexander's husband, the economist Professor Brian Ashcroft, condemned it.
Perhaps worst of all, the abolition of the 10p tax band has hit Scots hard. The working poor are a depressing reality of modern Scotland and around 500,000 low-paid employees are likely to lose out as a result of this tax increase. Worse, Brown has offended the very social democratic Scotland that Wendy Alexander has been trying to appeal to in her recent speeches in which she claimed - improbably - to be dedicated to "the redistribution of wealth".
With political incompetence on this scale it is hardly surprising that Salmond has had a good year in office. The sense of dynamism in the new Scottish executive has clearly impressed Scottish people and converted their latent nationalism into something more overtly political. Yet the stubborn fact remains that everything the SNP has done has been within the terms of the devolution settlement - so in a sense this has been a success for devolution, not independence. It took the SNP to discover just how radical the Scotland Act really is.
The SNP is now urging Scots to move to the next level - full political independence. They seem to be nibbling, but there is a studied vagueness about exactly what full-scale independence would actually mean. The SNP propose to remain within the EU, retain the Queen as head of state, and keep sterling as Scotland's currency, at least for the time being. This looks more like federalism, or perhaps confederalism than old-style 19th century nation-state nationalism. It could even be a form of "devolution max" that is being proposed by the Liberal Democrats.
The real problem for Labour could be that the Scots are losing their fear of independence because it no longer seems to mean border posts at Gretna Green. Some in the Labour party believe that Brown should halt the slide and call Alex Salmond's bluff by holding an early referendum on independence. This would force the SNP to define independence and force the Scots to choose. However, there is no sign that Gordon Brown is in any fit state right now to stage a constitutional referendum - especially since he has just refused to contemplate one on the EU treaty.
Brown's implosion couldn't have happened at a worst time for the union - just as nationalists have entered government in all three devolved administrations. This prime minister seems to be incapable of doing very much at all now that his cabinet is in revolt. Labour's opinion poll slide in the UK and Scotland could have even more serious consequences. If Brown loses his majority at the next general election in Westminster, there could be a protracted period of constitutional instability in Westminster.
If the Conservatives take over in Westminster, then Scottish MPs will likely be barred from voting on nominally English legislation under the "English votes for English laws" policies of David Cameron. The Barnett Formula will be scrapped and Scotland will likely assume responsibility for its own tax-raising. It could be that the fall of Gordon Brown will be the beginning of the end for the United Kingdom.
Return to home page