REPLACING Boris Johnson with one of the frontrunners in contention for the Tory leadership would only serve to boost support for independence in Scotland, a new poll has found.
The news comes from research conducted by YouGov for the pro-Union campaign group These Islands.
The poll of 1029 Scottish adults found that should Chancellor Rishi Sunak take over as Prime Minister, 13% of Scots said they would be more likely to support a Yes vote. This is opposed to the 6% who said they’d be more likely to oppose independence.
The effect was even more pronounced should Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, take over from Johnson at the head of the Conservative Party. The YouGov poll found that 15% of Scots would be more likely to support leaving the UK if Truss was at its head, while just 5% would be more likely to vote No.
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If Labour leader Keir Starmer were to take over as Prime Minister at the next General Election, 8% of Scots said they would be more likely to support independence, compared to 12% who said they would be more likely to oppose it.
The These Islands polling also looked into which issues Scots deemed the most important when considering whether or not to vote for independence.
It found that the economic consequences of a Yes vote were the largest issue, with 52% of respondents identifying it in their top three key factors.
Next came EU membership, with 36% of Scots putting it in their top three. This was followed by the level of a state pension, on 23%.
A hard border with England (19%), cuts to public spending (17%), the future of North Sea oil and gas (15%), the use of the pound (14%) and Trident (12%) were all also cited as key factors for voters.
These key issues were weighted differently by Yes and No supporters, suggesting where campaigns may target their messaging during a second referendum.
Those who would vote for an independent Scotland cited EU membership (58%), the economic consequences (44%) and Trident (24%) as the key issues for them. However, people who would vote for the Union cited the economy (65%), a state pension (31%), and a hard border with England (27%).
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The YouGov poll also asked the question of how people would vote in a second referendum, but it split the respondents into two groups.
Half of respondents were asked if Scotland should be an independent country (the 2014 question) while half were asked if Scotland should leave or remain in the UK (closer to the EU referendum formulation).
Of those asked the 2014 question, 53% said they would vote No and 47% Yes with undecided voters excluded.
Of those asked the leave/remain question, 59% said they’d vote remain compared to 41% who’d vote leave, again with undecided voters excluded.
The polling was released on Tuesday, the same day that separate polling from Survation for Ballot Box Scotland also found the same 53/47 split among voters when asked the 2014 question.
That Ballot Box Scotland poll also found Tory support was continuing to slide as the SNP remain dominant in Scottish politics.
Asked about the SNP’s policy for These Islands’ YouGov poll, the majority of voters said they were unclear on every issue mentioned. While this was slight in some areas (53% said they were unclear on the SNP’s policy on EU membership against 47% who were clear), it was marked in many others (77% said they were unclear on the SNP’s pension policy post-independence).
An SNP spokesperson said: “People have already decided there should be an independence referendum. The people of Scotland elected a majority to their Parliament with a clear manifesto commitment to hold a referendum – greater than the one in 2011.
“For any UK Government to try and block the will of the people by standing in the way of that cast-iron democratic mandate is simply unsustainable. The UK Government knows this, which is why they are so busy preparing behind the scenes for a referendum they know is coming.”
Kevin Hague (above), chairman of These Islands, said: “Pursuing the politics of grievance and selling the dream of independence keeps [the SNP] in power, but if they are honest about the economic implications of turning that dream into reality, the dream becomes more distant and their grip over Scottish politics weakens.”
The YouGov poll was conducted from March 29 to March 31 and asked 1029 Scots aged 16 or above.
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