Is Support for Scottish Independence Increasing?
Since the first referendum on Scottish independence was held in 2014, the trajectory of British politics has vastly changed.
In 2014 the people of Scotland voted to decide whether Scotland should stay in the United Kingdom or leave. 3,623,344 people voted in the referendum with voter turnout being at 84.6% for the whole country. 1,617,989 people voted to leave the UK whereas 2,001,926 voted to remain in the UK.
Then prime minister David Cameron and the Conservative Party government in Westminster made many claims and promises to Scotland should they have voted to remain. One of these claims was that Scotland would only be able to maintain our place in the European Union if we voted to remain.
However, two years after the referendum in 2016, a UK wide referendum on whether or not we should stay in the EU or leave was held and Scotland, who had overwhelmingly voted to remain, was taken out of the EU.
Many people are recently beginning to lose faith in the UK government after the COVID-19 pandemic brought to light a lot of government failures, the most recent of which being a series of parties held in 10 Downing Street that were attended by prime minister Boris Johnson that has led to a police investigation.
In a poll carried out on twitter, 69.2% of people said that they would vote yes in a potential second independence referendum whereas 30.8% would vote no.
As well as this, according to a survey carried out by Savanta Comres, the nation is currently split down the middle when it comes to the matter of Scottish independence. 46% percent of people would vote yes, 46% would vote no and 8% are undecided. If you remove the 8% of those undecided, it is a 50/50 split.
Many are now wondering if the downfalls of Boris’ government are enough to bring support for Scottish independence above 50% and whether another referendum will be held any time soon.