The National:

IT now seems safe to say that the new YouGov poll has Unionists thoroughly rattled.

The latest evidence of this comes courtesy of Kevin Hague, the dog-food salesman, graph obsessive and chair of Unionist so-called "think-tank" These Islands.

Hague was responding to a poll showing that the majority of Tory members would sacrifice the Union in order to go through with Brexit.

The survey showed that 63% of Tories were willing to make the trade-off – preferring the option of Scotland leaving than Northern Ireland doing the same.

In other words, the "precious Union" isn't actually so precious to the people who will decide the identity of our next Prime Minister.

And to hammer that point home, the poll also found that 26% of Tory members would be happy if Scotland were to become independent – Brexit or no Brexit.

We suspect this wasn't down to the Tory membership's love of democracy, and you can imagine how well that went down with Unionists.

Hague fired off a foul-mouthed tweet blaming … yes, the SNP of course.

He wrote: "this is a big win for the SNP’s strategy of making Scotland’s voice in the UK sound like that of false-grievance mongering dicks".

Not really the type of language becoming the chair of a so-called "think-tank" is it?

And Hague wasn't the only one to publically vent his frustration at the results – the Scottish Tories even took aim at their own party members.

Their spokesperson said: “Conservative members need to remember ours is a party of the whole UK. It’s in the name. If Scotland becomes independent, there is no UK.

"No matter how badly people want Brexit, no Conservative and Unionist member should be prepared to turn their back on the UK.”

Are we sensing a few nerves, perhaps?

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