EARLIER this week, to little fanfare, the Conservative think tank Onward published its "State of the Union" report, based on three large general public surveys in Scotland and the rest of the UK. Onward’s report is purported to be the largest survey of the Union since 2014 and is aimed at Unionist politicians who have been handwringing over how to keep the UK together.
Its content has been intelligently pulled together, though it suffers from some serious flaws – their use of leading questions, for instance, calls their conclusions into question. If I was a Unionist strategist, I’d think twice about trusting data from a question asking Scots whether they’d miss "Funding for public services like the Scottish NHS" after independence.
Nevertheless, there are two reasons to take this piece of work seriously. The first is to know the opponent – anyone serious about winning Scotland’s independence should read Onward’s report simply to understand the direction of Conservative thinking.
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Secondly, while flawed, this is indeed the largest survey of the Union, and specifically of Scottish public opinion, since 2014. Looking at the data, there are take-aways that the independence movement should pay attention to – both good and bad.
Bad news first: Independence supporters are less committed than supporters of our continued membership of the UK. Onward asked, on a scale from 0 – 10, how strongly voters agreed or disagreed that Scotland should be an independent country. Those who fell on the "disagree" side of the scale were, on average, closer to 0 ("strongly disagree") than those who fell on the "agree" side of the scale were to 10 ("strongly agree").
This might not be surprising – the poll this data came from also found 52% support for Yes, and 41% support for No. So, a lot of those Yes supporters are 2014 No voters. But, looking specifically at the level of commitment of different sets of 2014 Yes/No and current Yes/No supporters is telling.
2014 No voters who will still vote No are the most committed to their vote, followed by 2014 Yes voters who will still vote Yes. Crucially, though, 2014 Yes voters who will now vote No are significantly more committed to that vote than 2014 No voters who will now vote Yes.
This lends important context to recent downwards trends in Yes support. Yes support is quite simply significantly softer than No support, meaning that small changes in political context can push that support down in polling, and factors like turnout would be crucial were a referendum held tomorrow. The margins between success and failure will continue to be incredibly fine, even with majority Yes support in the polls.
Now, the good news. Onward asked whether a wide range of policy areas would be handled better in an independent Scotland, or within the UK. While these tended to split along partisan Yes/No lines, several policy areas emerged as areas in which significant numbers of 2014 No voters – enough to win a future referendum – thought Scotland would be better off independent.
A quarter of 2014 No voters thought Scottish agriculture and fisheries would be better off in an independent Scotland. More than one-in-five said Covid-19 management, education, and urban regeneration would be better handled if we were independent, and slightly below one-fifth that health and social care, affordable and available housing, and childcare would be better managed after independence.
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While there are areas of weakness for a future Yes campaign, including foreign affairs and defence – in which the work of SNP MPs Alyn Smith and Stewart McDonald, as well as the growing number of post-independence foreign policy analysts like Stephen Gethins and Anthony Salamone, will be crucial – those in which Yes has a comparative advantage offer fertile ground for a future campaign.
Support for independence is softer than Unionist support, which comes as little surprise. But a large block of No voters can be convinced by a campaign that puts it best foot-forward and prioritises the policy areas they believe will be better off in an independent Scotland. All’s to play for.
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