The truth about #IndyRef2

What got me started

Every day we hear Unionists compulsively ranting about how the SNP should 'stop obsessing about a second referendum' because there is 'no appetite for independence'. They have been mantraing this for years and especially more loudly since last year's General Election campaign. I remember vividly the first Scottish leaders' debate. Ruth Davidson mentioned independence 15 seconds into her opening statement. Nicola Sturgeon did not mention it until 26 minutes into the debate proper. Now tell me who's obsessing.

We also have a bunch of Unionists on Twitter traying to make their point with fancy graphs. Sorry but you're going to have some PsephSpeak here (that's PsephSpeak for statisticians' jargon). They pretend to accurately represent the trend of voting intentions using a linear regression. Only problem is that their graphs are misleading and dishonest and basically don't mean fuck all.

Even the greenest newbie statistician could tell you the purpose of linear regression is to determine whether or not correlations exist between two variables. This has nothing to do with the analysis of polls and trends. Using it in that context is one of two things: gross incompetence or deliberate attempt to mislead. Either way it's cooshite.

The correct way to represent trends when you deal with polling data is to use the n-point rolling average which will give you a more accurate trend on the long term or the short term, depending on the value you assign to n. Personally I settled on six which is sort of a compromise value when you have smallish datasets with unpredictable variations between datapoints.  

What the true trend is

Here is what what you get from the 45 referendum polls we have had since September 2014, when you use the proper method and actually seek to display the real trends.

Of course there have been ups and downs in Yes voting intentions over four years. Nobody denies it and nobody ever pretended it wouldn't be a bumpy road. This graph shows what matters: how Yes and No voting intentions really evolved over the last 22 months, not a fantasy version of it. 

Now let's concentrate on the most recent period like the past 15 months. Because obviously voting intentions from back in 2015 are totally irrelevant today. Arguably those from 2017 are also irrelevant to assess the current situation but there are some interesting points to be made from a closer look at the 2017 trends. Including identifying mistakes made then, that the Yes movement should want to avoid repeating in the future. 

First thing you see in the graph is that Yes voting intentions took a nosedive between April and June 2017. Which was (not coincidentally) the timeframe of the General Election campaign. Yes was on 47% average the week the GE was called and plummeted to 42% in early June. There might have been many reasons for that but I think the main factor was the sloppy SNP campaign. Remember when the SNP let themselves be cornered into debating devolved matters and independence which were anything but germane to a GE campaign. 

Lesson one: don't let the opposition dictate which issues are relevant or not. Make your own strong points the center of gravity of the campaign and ignore distractions or else you're gonna pay dearly. The SNP should bear that in mind if this year's surprise snap GE finally actually happens despite Labour doing their best to prevent it. 

Then Yes voting intentions went up again from 43% (Panelbase, 07.09.2017) to 47% (Survation, 10.07.2018). That's when grassroots seriously and strongly acted on their impatience with the SNP's 'cautious' approach, which many (myself included) felt had turned into procrastination, and decisively took the matter into their own hands. The huge success of the 'All Under One Banner' marches is obviously a major factor in the Yes 'revival'. While the SNP were debating the fine points of the 'why?' and the 'when?' at the Aberdeen Spring Conference, AUOB spread the word about the 'why?' all over Scotland while putting pressure on the SNP about the 'when?'. And it worked.

Lesson Two: never ignore the grassroots, embrace and trust them. They know what they're doing and they're good at it. In the last few months they got the message through better and faster than traditional parties. They have earned their position as first tier players in the next referendum campaign.

Where do we stand now?

Let's focus now on just the 2018 polling and you will see it paints quite a different picture than Unionists would like us to believe. We have had eight #IndyRef2 polls so far this year and here are the results (with and without undecideds):

This is a half empty-half full situation. Unionists will of course say that we are still far far away from a Yes majority. But numbers actually say it's getting better for the Yes camp. Current rolling average of voting intentions also shows it. I used only the four most recent polls to get as close a snapshot as possible of voters' current state of mind. Here it is, with and without undecideds and compared to the 2014 result.

So despite all the negative campaigning by the opposition parties and all the help they get from English and Scottish MSM, Yes voting intentions are up 1% from Referendum Day. Which is a good start in a possibly uphill battle. Just remember that on the week of the Edinburgh Agreement polling was roughly 65-35 No. Two years of campaigning delivered a 10% swing to Yes, about 360k votes. 

Today the Yes camp need a 5% swing 'only'. And it can be done. Day after day the English government themselves make the case for Scotland to get away from all the already self-inflicted damage and impending disaster.

So what's next?

First of all more #SNPBad stories all over the place. It has already started with the military pay fake news. The story was debunked by The Ferret and The National four months ago already yet this week it comes back, not coincidentally after a series of positive polls for the SNP. Similar situations will happen again as we all know the MSM guideline these days is: don't let facts get in the way of the narrative Tory Central Command just sent us.

Now we also have this hilarious attack on Visit Scotland's latest campaign. Which is in fact a good thing as it shows yet another Tory MSP making a total arse of herself. And will help convince anyone who still had doubts what a sorry bunch of glaikit fuds they all are.

Nevertheless a rerun of Better Together and The Vow is highly unlikely. All of Scotland would laugh their asses out if we  hear the likes of 'Scotland stronger in the Union'; 'a Union of equals', 'Scottish Parliament will be made permanent' or 'extensive new powers will be devolved' ever again. So never again anything like this:

Then of course we also had 'Better Together because Scotland will enjoy continued membership of the EU'. Too bad this one has already been nicely taken care of by Unionists themselves. So when the SNP write down their 'Why?' talking points, it has to carry a strong 'Post-Brexit Why?' message. Obviously Keith Brown is already working on just that.

Interestingly the English Government themselves have already provided some data that might help Keith hone the pivotal argument for an Indy Scotland. Their own figures demonstrate how devastatingly the now-certain Hard Brexit would wreak havoc with the economy and employment. On these figures 2028 would see the UK's economy back to 1998 levels.

The impact on Scotland can be approximately assessed by transposing the UK-wide estimates on population share. The result is even more frightening as it points to Scotland's economy being wrecked beyond recovery within the next ten years. Based on the English Government's own estimates.

I guess we already know how to avoid this. Now let's have a look at one of many ways we can achieve it.

What about Yes-to-No switchers?

Back in 2014 Lord Ashcroft fielded a thorough post-referendum poll. The final document has 52 pages of tables dissecting the referendum vote on many different criteria: gender, age, social grade, political affiliation,.... The one I will focus on is the referendum vote / political affiliation crosstab. The Ashcroft poll has the referendum vote distributed by 2010 General Election vote. Current polls have referendum voting intentions / 2017 GE vote crosstabs. So here's the comparison between Yes vote then and now for the four major parties (minor parties are excluded from the crosstabs both by Ashcroft and current polls):

So now we know SNP voters are not 100% Yes though it's closer to that today than four years ago. And Conservative voters are not 100% No so Scot Yes Tories may have gotten their message through after all. But what is more interesting (and can be acted on) is the massive slump in both Lab-Yes and LibDem-Yes votes.

I have tried a simulation based on current Scottish voting intentions and the average Ref/GE crosstab from the three most recent referendum polls. If I arbitrarily input 90% Yes for Greens (same as SNP), 50% for Others (neutral) and 0% for UKIP (plausible) then the aggregate is just the 45.9% current polling average for Yes.

This without tweaking any of the data. Which would be daft anyway as all can be easily checked from the detailed tables available on the pollsters' sites. More interesting is the final step. Now if I tweak Lab-Yes and Lib-Yes votes back to the levels Ashcroft found in 2014, then Yes wins by a nose and we get Indy Scotland.

Achieving this would certainly require some creative campaigning from the Yes camp and especially the SNP but it's not like it would be squaring the circle. Narrowing the target to Remain/Yes-to-No voters is possibly the most sensible option. You already know I have my doubts about rejoining EU being the best option for Indy Scotland. But recent polls show that Scotland would vote Remain even more massively than in 2016 if there was a rematch of the EU referendum.

Right now I would go for a more cautious option for once. Just mention the Single Market without any direct reference to the EU. Since being part of the Single Market can be achieved through EEA membership too, that would leave more options open and make everybody happy. Remainers would subconsciously translate that into 'EU' while Leavers would translate it into 'EEA option open' making it a win-win situation for the Yes camp. Just a (not so) random thought though.

And what next?

Probably voting intentions flatlining on about 47-53 for the foreseeable future. Then by the end of March 2019 Scottish Government formally demands that House of Commons vote to trigger Section 30 again. ScotGov would have the upper hand with the SNP relying on the 2017 mandate and a commanding majority of Scottish Westminster seats (probably even bigger by then than it is now if the long-awaited snap GE happens in the meantime).

My hunch is that right now we have even odds that the English Government would cave in and accept an 'Edinburgh II' agreement. These odds can only get better with time as Scottish public opinion becomes more and more aware of the catastrophic consequences of the Brexit bùrach and support for holding a second Independence referendum rises above 50%.

Just my opinion anyway as always.

Stay tuned for further updates and provocative thoughts (and possible upsets too).

Saor Alba gu bràth

#IndyRef2  #ScotRef