Support for Scottish independence at historic high, poll finds

A new poll has found that as many as 58 percent of Scottish voters support a breakaway from the United Kingdom – the highest in any survey to date. The poll also found widespread dissatisfaction with PM Boris Johnson among Scots.

When undecided voters aren’t counted, 58 percent of Scots would vote in favor of independence, an Ipsos MORI poll revealed on Wednesday. Including undecided voters, 55 percent of people would vote yes, 39 percent would vote no, and six percent were unsure.

The result is the biggest polling lead for the Scottish independence movement ever recorded. Back in 2014, Scotland voted against independence by 55.3 percent to 47.7 percent, and since the referendum, the yes side has broken 50 percent only once in opinion polling, in a 2015 Ipsos survey.

The latest poll also places the pro-independence Scottish National Party on track to win a majority in Holyrood next year, with 58 percent of voters backing First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s party. Sturgeon remains popular among voters, according to these latest figures, with 72 percent of poll respondents saying they’re happy with her performance. 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, meanwhile, has left many Scots unhappy, with 76 percent of those polled dissatisfied with his tenure in Downing Street.

Johnson has repeatedly ruled out granting Sturgeon and the pro-independence Scots another referendum. “We had a referendum in 2014. We were told it was a once-in-a-generation event by the leaders of the Scottish Nationalist Party, and six years, it doesn’t seem to me, is a generation,” Johnson said in Westminster earlier this month.

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