LONDON (Reuters) – Supporters of Scottish independence have taken their first opinion poll lead since the referendum campaign began, according to a YouGov survey for the Sunday Times newspaper.
With less than two weeks to go before the Sept 18 vote, the poll puts the “Yes” to independence campaign on 51 per cent, with the unionists on 49 per cent, overturning a 22-point lead for the unionist campaign in just a month, the Sunday Times said.
The paper announced the headline results in a news release ahead of publication. No further details of the poll were immediately available.
“The YouGov survey … shows that the nationalists have taken a two-point lead and are poised to triumph in the referendum,” the paper said.
After months of surveys showing nationalists heading for defeat, recent polls have been showing the gap narrowing to the extent that they raise the real prospect that secessionists led by Alex Salmond’s Scottish National Party (SNP) could achieve their goal of breaking the 307-year-old union with England.
A previous YouGov poll on Sept 1 put the lead for the “no” to secession campaign at just six points, down from 14 points in the middle of August and 22 points at the start of that month.
But the latest average of the polls, issued on Sept 1 by Strathclyde University Professor of Politics John Curtice, still shows the unionist lead at 10 points.
The late showing by the independence camp has hit sterling on the foreign exchanges and electrified Britain’s political class after its summer break.
