SUPPORT for Scottish independence is at 54% but would rise even further if Reform UK’s leader, Nigel Farage, were to become the next prime minister, a new poll has shown.
A Norstat survey for The Sunday Times has suggested that the rise of Reform UK and the failings of the Labour government have helped to increase support for Scottish independence.
Data from the poll, which was published Saturday evening, shows the Yes side has opened up an eight-point lead, sitting at 54%, when undecided voters are excluded.
The poll also showed that if Farage were to enter Downing Street and become prime minister, support for Scottish independence would be at 58%.
It suggests that with Farage leading the UK, it would leave independence campaigners within touching distance of 60% support, which many believe would represent a tipping point, making a refusal to grant a second independence referendum unsustainable.
Norstat survey comes with just days to go before the Holyrood by-election in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse constituency, where Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney says the contest is between the SNP and Reform.
Labour appears to be out of the running for the by-election following a disastrous campaign by their candidate, Davy Russell, in a blow to Anas Sarwar’s dreams of success at next year’s Holyrood elections.
Norstat polling showed more woes for Sarwar and co, with fewer than one in five Scots planning to back Scottish Labour next year, in a devastating reversal of fortunes when the party won 37 seats in Scotland in the 2024 General Election.
A third of Scots, 33%, said they would vote for SNP with their constituency vote, meanwhile 28% said they would back the party on the regional list. Both represent a drop of two points compared with Norstat’s polling by The Times three months ago.
However, according to projections by the polling expert John Curtice, a fracturing of the Unionist vote means the SNP remains on course to be comfortably returned as the largest party after next May’s elections, with 54 of the devolved parliament’s 129 seats.
Labour would be the second largest party with 20 seats, while Reform would have 18, one ahead of the Conservatives, who would have 17.
The Liberal Democrats would return 11 MSPs, up by five, and the Greens 9, a rise of two.
On the recent polling figures, Curtice said: “John Swinney is in pole position to remain Scotland’s first minister after next year’s Holyrood election. But his party is still struggling to recover from its sharp reversal of fortune last year.
“Key to the SNP’s lead is the rise of Reform. Nigel Farage’s party is now breathing down Labour’s neck in the race for second place at Holyrood.”
SNP Depute Leader Keith Brown said that Labour has “let down” Scots and that Reform are trying to “stoke division” in Scotland.
He said: “This poll is proof of what we already know: the SNP has momentum and the Labour Party has lost this by-election.
“After ten months of failure and broken promises, voters know that the Labour Party can't be trusted, and see Farage's party as the threat that it is.
“In government, Labour has taken away the Winter Fuel Payment, cut £5 billion of support for disabled people and watched on as energy bills rose by £150.”
Brown added: “With an SNP government, the people of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse are getting action on what matters to them: bringing back the universal Winter Fuel Payment, record funding for our NHS and key costs lower with peak rail fares scrapped and lower income tax for the majority of taxpayers.
“The Labour Party has let you down and Farage is trying to stoke division.”
Patrick Harvie MSP said it is increasingly clear that trying to build a better Scotland within the UK is like “swimming against the tide”.
He said: “You only need to look across the Atlantic to Trump’s America to see what a catastrophe Farage in Downing Street would be. He’s made no secret of his admiration for Trump and his disastrous presidency.
“The irreversible damage it would do to our public services, the abandonment of science based climate policy, the further enrichment of the already super rich at the expense of everyone else, and the degradation of our institutions as minority communities are attacked and scapegoated.
“It’s increasingly clear that trying to build a fairer, greener Scotland within the UK is swimming against the tide. With the powers of a normal independent European country we could do so much more.”
