Cash rich/idea poor, newspaper editor bothering, shopper bothering, Oxford English dictionary petitioning, secret Green Ink Gang organising, Unionist foie grasroots organisation ‘Scotland in Union’ spent some of their rich donors money on some more, highly dishonest, polls timed to coincide with the start of and end of the SNP conference.
Even we could see it was an obvious attempt to manipulate the debate and give the British media some nice questions and headlines- and yes, SiU were up to their old tricks, trying to manipulate the answers they got back too. The sneaks.
Famously, (if you follow these things, which you probably don’t), when SiU commission polls, they like to play around with the questions used, until they get the right result. They used to ask the original question, like everyone else, but that didn’t work so now it’s – ‘Should Scotland Remain part of the UK or Leave the UK?‘
It’s a bit more of a mouthful than the official, straightforward, understood question ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’ Yes or No.
@Scotlandinunion took to twitter to celebrate that ‘57% of people in Scotland would vote to Remain part of the United Kingdom in a referendum with only 43% in favour of leaving the UK.’
It doesn’t take a total galaxy brain to work out why using the terminology of an unpopular Brexit might effect the result of an independence poll in a not insubstantial way. You can imagine the high fives during the strategy meeting.
Unfortunately for SiU, another poll using the actual, original, question, released the same day, revealed a two point lead for Yes to independence.
Your question doesn’t even make sense, chaps
Putting aside whether it’s even wise to spend your money on polls you can’t trust yourself, the biggest problem SiU have is their question just doesn’t make sense.
With Brexit, the UK was already independent and it was leaving a union or trading bloc.
Scotland could, in theory leave the UK and still not be independent. Think of the Isle of Man or the different Channel Islands but less tax avoidy.
They’re, mainly, self governing and not part of the UK but they don’t control their own economy, are represented by the UK internationally and the people are British subjects with British passports. We wouldn’t be independent we’d be in some kind of Kenny Farquharson timeline reality.
Other SiU poll questions too- the ‘would you still support independence if it means ‘something absolutely bloody awful’ (and made up) will happen? Like Scotland being the first country to ever be forced to use the Euro or chips becoming expensive.
You can imagine the Union Jack’d outrage if anyone tried to rig these things in the other way. Should Scotland be an independent country if it meant emulating the successes of our international neighbours?
Come on chaps – stop cheating with your polls. It’s not cricket and people aren’t falling for it anyway.
