Scottish Referendum: Alex Salmond's Running Out of Time

In two months from today, Scotland will be making the biggest decision they have made in over 300 years: whether to undo the 1707 Act of Union and become an independent country.  At the moment, it's looking like the Scottish people are planning to stay within the United Kingdom, but that lead isn't unassailable, especially with two months to go.

Survation released a poll last week expressing Scottish voting intentions on the 18 September referendum:

Data Source: Survation, Poll released 10 July 2014

This gives the No campaign a lead of five percentage points with 13% of voters undecided.  This means that, in order for the Yes campaign to catch up based on undecided votes alone, they would need to get 70% (9-4) of these unsupported voters on side - a very unlikely prospect indeed.

When looking at the regional breakdowns, only two regions are showing a lead for the Yes campaign.  Support is strongest in the Central region (around Falkirk, Hamilton and Kilmarnock), where the Yes side leads by around 19%.  There is a smaller lead in the North East region (around Aberdeenshire and Dundee), though this lead is within the margin of error.

Opposition is by far the strongest in the Highlands, where the No side leads by nearly 25%.  Across the other regions, the No side has a lead between 5 and 15 percent, except for Glasgow, where the No lead is within the margin of error.  Also interestingly about Glasgow is that it has the most undecided voters at nearly 1 in 4,

 

This becomes interesting when you compare this with the result of the general election in 2011.  You would expect that a higher SNP vote would imply a higher appetite for independence, but that doesn't appear to be the case.  The North East, which received the highest share of the vote for the SNP, is only marginally in favour of independence, whereas the Central region, which was middle of the pack in terms of SNP support, supports it much more strongly.  In the Highlands, the second strongest region for SNP support in 2011, is seeing the most support for staying in the union.

The path to victory

This begs the question: what do Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon need to do in order to achieve their dream of Scottish independence?  There are two things that they will need to do in order to convince some of the current No voters to change their minds.

The first thing that they need to do is explain why a further devolution of powers to the Scottish parliament (the so-called "Devo-Max" option) is not good enough.  This would give a number of powers, including taxation, welfare and other fiscal matters, to the Scottish parliament, and according to a June TNS poll, around 56% of No voters prefer Devo-Max over the status quo.  The UK government has promised Devo-Max in the event of a No vote, and Alex Salmond would need to explain to those who support Devo-Max what powers Scotland needs that this doesn't solve.

The second thing that they need to do is to address (or at least acknowledge) some of the concerns that critics to independence have raised.  While Salmond's criticism of the No campaign (that they're all fear and no vision) is not an unfair criticism, the Yes campaign seems to have been long on hope and short on hard facts.  This particularly comes when it comes to issues such as the currency and border controls, which are more likely to be decided through Scotland-EU negotiations than Scotland-rUK negotiations.  The simple uncertainty in itself in these kinds of questions is causing some people to lean towards a No vote, and dispelling that uncertainty could be enough to change people's minds.

Formation of government

The next general election for the Scottish Parliament will be in May 2016, regardless of the result of the referendum (Independence Day would be 24 May 2016), and it is expected that the same system of electing MSPs to the Scottish Parliament would be used post-independence.  With current polling, this would point to a minority SNP administration.

When it comes to the rUK, there is a belief that Scottish independence will lead to permanent Conservative rule, as 2/3 of Scottish seats in Westminster were won by Labour in 2010.  But the current polling suggests that this is not the case.  With the UK as is, Labour would have a comfortable majority of 26 (which, for comparison, is less than half of what Tony Blair got in 2005).  If you exclude Scotland, Labour would still have a majority, but a very slender one (5 seats) that would not last the entire five-year parliament.

In fact, there is only one election since WWII that Labour won with a majority that they would not have without Scotland.  October 1974 would have been a hung parliament, though that election probably wouldn't have happened as the February 1974 would have been a Conservative government instead of a hung parliament.

This begs an interesting question: would Margaret Thatcher have ever become Prime Minister without Scotland?  But I digress.

There are still plenty of questions to be answered about Scottish independence, both from those who support independence and those who support remaining in the UK.  But there's not much time for them to be answered before the Scottish people make a decision about the future of their nation.

The Scottish independence referendum will be held on Thursday 18 September.  All British, Commonwealth and European Union citizens who are at least 16 years old and resident in Scotland are eligible to vote.  The majority of counting areas are expected to declare their totals overnight, with an official result declared early Friday morning.