A POLLING firm has recorded an increase in support for Scottish independence as anger continues over Downing Street parties.
With calls for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to resign amid the scandal ongoing, Savanta ComRes put support for Scotland leaving the Union up two points since October.
The new poll says 46% of Scots would back independence at a future indyref, with the same percentage indicating support for staying in the Union. Some 8% were undecided.
With those don’t knows excluded, the two campaigns sit on 50/50.
Boris Johnson's already low favourability rating has plunged
In December, polling by another firm, Ipsos MORI, found support for independence was at 55%. However, more general trends have put the support for the No and Yes campaigns closer to the 50/50 split over the last year.
A majority of Savanta ComRes respondents also believed that the Downing Street gatherings have damaged the Union, with 54% agreeing with this statement. Around a third said the scandal hasn’t really hurt the Union, or that it had not hurt it at all.
The polling also found that Johnson’s already low ratings in Scotland have plummeted by 16 points since October, putting his favourability ranking at -62 – the same level as Alba leader Alex Salmond.
More than three-quarters (79%) of Scots now believe Johnson should resign.
READ MORE: Why is a country so furious at its leader unable to take any action for years?
Chancellor Rishi Sunak, one of the favourites to replace Johnson in the event he steps down or is forced out by his own MPs, has also seen his favourability rating plunge by 10 points to -19.
He is still more popular than Douglas Ross (below), the Scottish Conservative leader, whose rating is -21, down two points.
The poll suggests Ross’s gamble in calling for Johnson to resign has paid off among members of the public, with 79% saying they thought he’d done the right thing.
Chris Hopkins, the polling firm’s political research director, said while the 50/50 indy split shows a move towards Yes, he may have expected support to be higher given the ongoing UK Government chaos. Despite this, the UK Government’s overall favourability ratings in Scotland are very low, at -50.
He went on: "Indeed, many swing independence voters will likely weigh up in their minds the competence of both the Scottish and UK governments at any given moment to help decide how they’d vote at a future referendum.
"And while the UK Government is in disarray, with four in five saying the PM should resign over Partygate, it’s perhaps surprising that support for Scotland to go it alone, away from the disingenuous nature of Westminster politics, isn’t higher.”
Meanwhile, the SNP Westminster deputy leader Kirsten Oswald welcomed the poll.
"The boozy lockdown Downing Street parties is just the latest scandal to grip Westminster. Boris Johnson's position as Prime Minister is untenable - the public know it, his MPs know it, and he knows it.
"The reality is that getting rid of Boris Johnson alone won't fix the problem," she added. "Corruption and scandals are part of a wider culture of Westminster entitlement and contempt for the rules. This new poll - highlighting the scale of public opposition to the corrupt Tory government and movement in favour of independence - is another reminder that only with independence will we be able to escape the broken and corrupt Westminster system."
Some 1004 Scots were surveyed by Savanta ComRes between January 14 and 18.
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