The troubles with Brexit have driven the support for Scottish independence to its highest in the past four years. The voters who voted to remain in the European Union are now calling for a succession from the United Kingdom, driving the support to 49 percent from 45 percent when the last poll was carried out in June 2018. In a 2014 referendum, voters were asked “Should Scotland be an independent country?”, whereby 45 percent of voters answered “Yes” and 55 percent answered “No” with a turnout of 85 percent.
In 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union but among its four nations, both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay. Thus, following the Brexit vote, Britain has been thrown into a domestic political chaos and it remains unclear how, when and if at all it will leave the EU. According to the latest poll, 53 percent of Scots thought that there should not be another referendum on independence within the next five years but Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is calling for one before 2021 when the current Scottish parliamentary term ends.
Another trend showed by the poll concerns both the Conservatives and the Labor Party in Scotland. The Scottish Conservatives are set to lose their only representative in the European Parliament in the May poll as 40 percent of those who supported them in 2017 are moving to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. “These patterns represent a clear warning to the Unionist camp that the pursuit of Brexit might yet produce a majority for independence,” Professor John Curtice, Britain’s leading polling expert, commented.
