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THIS week The National has run a series of exclusive polls in which we asked questions most corners of the Scottish press wouldn’t ask about, and we’ve learnt a lot about how the nation is feeling about British politics in the process.
Our first poll showed 48% of people would vote for Scottish independence in a second referendum with 45% saying no, which goes to show Andy Burnham moving into No 10 has done nothing to shift the dial on how Scots feel about being part of the UK.
But one of the key takeaways for us was just how many people said they were in favour of a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI), which came as a shock.
We found almost half of Scots (45%) said they would either strongly or somewhat support declaring independence from the UK without a referendum, while 55% oppose the move.
It’s very easy for people to say this off-hand, of course, when it doesn’t seem like a realistic prospect, but it does show just how sick to the back teeth many Scots have become with Westminster consistently refusing to grant powers for a second referendum.
It also shows, perhaps, a frustration with the SNP failing to effectively increase support and apply the appropriate pressure to Westminster to secure that second vote. A huge chunk of Scots are flirting with the idea of just getting out of here, come hell or high water, and this should be a wake-up call to parties on both sides of the debate.
We discovered too that the SNP would win a comfortable majority if a snap General Election was called tomorrow with 29% of voters backing the party. John Curtice said this would translate into 30 MPs, a significant increase on the handful that currently sit on the green benches.
Once again, it proves that with only 18% of voters saying they would back Scottish Labour, the so-called “Burnham bounce” is not taking hold north of the Border.
Elsewhere, we discovered how Scots are feeling about the so-called “King of the North” and Burnham’s decision to shift some Downing Street operations to Manchester – aka Number 10 North.
With don’t knows removed, more than 70% of Scots said they don't trust the new Prime Minister to stand up for Scotland, with just 28% saying they do trust him. Meanwhile, 72% said Number 10 North was “just a gimmick” that will make little difference, with only 28% saying it is a "meaningful step" towards spreading political power more evenly across the UK.
This shows that as much as Burnham carves himself out as pro-devolution and pro-democracy, Scots remain unconvinced and are highly sceptical of how much moving some operations to another English city will really have an impact on Scotland.
And finally, we asked people how concerned they were about the rise of far-right politics in Scotland and whether they felt the rise of Reform UK had emboldened far-right extremists.
We found almost two-thirds of Scots are indeed concerned about the rise of far-right politics, with only 17% saying they are not concerned at all.
And a whopping 74% said Reform UK’s rise had made far-right extremists more confident.
These were interesting questions to pose as while we see far-right riots increasing, it’s always hard to know how worried Scots are about it or whether they feel it’s just a minority of people causing trouble who are not going to have any cut through. It seems though people are indeed quite fearful.
What is even more fascinating is looking at the breakdown. We found the age group with the highest proportion of people who were “very concerned” about the growth of far-right politics in Scotland was 75+ at 31%. This is the group most likely to remember Nazi Germany, so it goes to show this still sticks with them and that they’re not complacent about such regimes having power again.
Meanwhile, it was eye-catching that Glasgow was the region most concerned about the rise of the far-right by quite some distance, with 40% of voters saying they were very concerned. Clearly, violent scenes at Glasgow Green during the Commonwealth Games and on the Buchanan Street steps have left many afraid of where things are going.
What’s clear from all our studies is that Scots are yet to be convinced the change of hands at Westminster is going to make any difference and that this is something they are losing patience with given the far-right’s growing influence in our county.
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