For all that the focus this year was on the UK General Election, 2024 was a milestone year for Scotland’s constitutional debate. In September, we marked a full decade since the Independence referendum, a decade that somehow both flew by yet feels like an eternity ago. Scotland and the UK are very different places now, after Brexit and with Reform UK rising to become a more serious force than UKIP ever were.
Yet if there has been one constant over the decade, it’s that the debate over Independence has never truly gone away. The salience of the constitution has ebbed and flowed, but even as we enter an ebb period it remains a defining political faultline. To mark the 10 year anniversary, I wrote a longer piece about the constitution, how polling has shifted, and the challenges facing both sides, which you can read here. For this piece though, let’s limit ourselves just to the past year.
Polling Caveats
Although these pieces always work on the basis of a Q4 polling average, in order to have some kind of consistency from year to year, which pollsters are in that average is highly variable. This year we only had three polls in this quarter, two of which came from Norstat and one from Survation. Indeed apart from those two pollsters, the only other full Scottish polling since July’s General Election has come from Opinium. Savanta, YouGov and Ipsos are missing in action.
However, there have been two polls that included Independence questions from FindOutNow. I hadn’t included their October poll in my tracker anyway, and some bizarre findings in their parliamentary polling have led me to conclude they are too unreliable to include in my averaging. Whilst that was my instinct based on their December Scottish poll, it’s worth nothing that even by the standards of what was a badly polled election (at GB, but not at Scottish, level) their UK General Election figures were extremely wide of the mark.
In the absence of those FindOutNows, the polling average here is less generous towards Independence than what you’d get tallying up the figures yourself from a Wikipedia table or some such. Especially given the Norstat double dip in what we do have as well, there also won’t be much smoothing out of any other particular house effects.
As is always the case with polling on this question, this is going to look at figures both with and without Don’t Knows included. That comes with the caution that Don’t Knows are particularly important on this sort of binary question, and faced with a real referendum may not split neatly between options. In addition, the “Excluding Don’t Knows” figure may differ marginally from what you’d get using the raw “Including Don’t Knows” figure as your basis, because there’s been an additional step of rounding involved.
Independence Polling Average Through 2024 (Including Don't Know)
We started this year in a slightly odd place, with an already established lead for Independence bolstered by one of those FindOutNows when I was still counting them, and then a second Independence-favourable Ipsos. I wouldn’t have been entirely convinced that was a real lead as a result anyway, and once those exited the average it tilted back towards the Union and then remained largely steady throughout the year, with a little bit of a narrowing around the election.
What suddenly snapped this back to a near tie at the end of the year was a shock poll with the biggest Independence lead any pollster has found this year, which I’ll discuss further in the Q3 average.
Independence Polling Average Through 2024 (Excluding Don't Know)
Looking at things excluding Don’t Knows doesn’t change anything substantive, but it does allow us to see how close things remain on this front. Average support for Independence seems to have been ahead of where it was in 2014 pretty consistently throughout the year, even if the Union has maintained majority support for most of that time.
Independence Polling Average Q4 2024
Changes here are versus Q4 2023 and, for the pure No:Yes figures, the 2014 referendum. Remember we’re dealing with just three polls for this quarterly average, as opposed to the five above. (Also be aware that due to rounding on the headline figures, last year didn’t sum up to exactly 100%, which is why the changes here don’t sum to 0.)
We actually ended up in almost exactly the same place we were last year, with a Pro-Union lead in the last 5 polls, but a Pro-Independence lead in the 3 making up the Q4 average. The poll doing most of the work here even has the same headline 51% Yes, 43% No figures as last year. Spooky! Look under the bonnet however and there are some key differences.
Whereas last year’s trio split 2:1 in favour of the Union, this year they went one apiece to the Union, Independence and a tie. In addition, whereas Independence outlier in 2023 came from Ipsos, a pollster known to find higher Independence shares than others, this year it was from Norstat. Although I reckon Norstat are underestimating Labour support a little, and that may be feeding through to other parts of their polling, they have no prior record of abnormally high Independence polling.
That’s why it would be useful to get some more of our “ordinary” pollsters, such as YouGov, into the mix. It’d be useful to see whether there’s a general uptick in support for Independence, perhaps rooted in the general feeling of political dissatisfaction, or if that was a rare outlier. Hopefully, we’ll see polling pick up a bit more in the new year.
Council Area Projection
Please see this page for how projections work and important caveats.
On this purely for indication, purely for fun projection versus 2014, Yes would have a lead in 15 council areas (up from 4 at the referendum, the same as last year), compared to 17 for No (correspondingly down from 28 in 2014, and again identical to last year).
I can just completely re-hash last year’s text here: the pattern is of the Central Belt (bar the most affluent bits) leaning towards Independence, with the Highlands and Western Isles as outlying areas also swinging that way, whilst the south of the country and the mostly rural sweep in between the Highlands and Central Belt remain mostly supportive of the Union. In this scenario, Independence barely squeaks ahead despite the Union being the preferred option in most council areas largely because it’s generally the more populous areas that lean towards Yes.
Looking Ahead
Whatever else may have happened – or more accurately, not happened – on the constitutional side of things this year, we did get one extremely important reminder: simply beating the SNP in one election does not equate to turning the page on Independence. A decade on from the referendum, it remains the preferred option of almost half of the population. That cannot be either handwaved away, nor simply wished into a big majority. I’m going to keep flogging this particular dead horse, but neither side can afford to be complacent.
If you support Independence, you’d be an absolute fool to assume that just because Labour have gotten off to a rocky start in Downing Street that Independence can only become more appealing. David Cameron’s government started out shaky and the Conservatives still managed a 14-year stretch in power, taking the UK out of the EU and dramatically transforming our political landscape. Labour have plenty of time to pick themselves back up, and even if they don’t, economic stresses may eventually translate to less rather than more confidence in Independence. If you want to win, you need to find a way to take advantage of emerging weaknesses in the UK whilst patching up those in the case for Independence.
Similarly, for the Pro-Union side, consoling yourself with the idea it’s just another little bump in the road and once Starmer’s government stabilises a bit it’ll all be over for the dreaded Nats would be utterly daft. Various people, at various times, for various reasons, have assumed Independence was about to drop dead as an idea. Losing the 2014 referendum should have killed it, but it didn’t. Brexit making some of the realities of Independence harder should have killed it, but didn’t. Labour turfing the Conservatives out at Westminster should have killed it, but didn’t. If you want to preserve the Union in the long term, you’re going to have to start arguing for it on its own merits rather than expecting circumstances to doom Independence for you.
Thanks and a Happy New Year!
And with that, we can wrap up the seventh (!) whole year of Ballot Box Scotland! This year has been especially busy due to the General Election, Holyrood boundary review, and a slew of by-elections, with the latter coinciding with me buying my first home after many years of renting, which itself was pretty time consuming and stressful.
If you’ve appreciated my work and can afford to do so (and I know that’s not a given at this time of year), please do think about popping a wee donation my way via the link below. Although I do get the occasional bit of paid commentary in this role, this is largely a labour of love, and every little bit of support is very gratefully received.
As ever, I wish everyone who has followed Ballot Box Scotland through another year a very Happy New Year for when it comes. As I’m a glutton for punishment, I’ll be launching a revised version of my New Municipalism local government project early on, so check back for that if you’re feeling especially nerdy!
If you find this or other Ballot Box Scotland output useful and/or interesting, and you can afford to do so, please consider donating to support my work. I love doing this, but it’s a one-man project and takes a lot of time and effort. All donations, no matter how small, are greatly appreciated and extremely helpful.
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