Chris

Polls like this come around from time to time and have done so for many years. Boris-Brexit may be the pretext for this one but it hasn’t been for any of the past ones and won’t be in future. The vast, vast majority of polls, taken over many years, are no, no and no.

Scottish politics can be quite nuanced and is frequently misunderstood by those who do not follow it closely (and that is quite hard to do without living here).

Pollsters frequently pick issues which they know will enrage sufficient numbers of Scottish voters and run an independence poll in the immediate aftermath. An upswing in support for independence always makes good headlines, especially during the summer silly season when little else is happening.

But the underlying sentiment hasn’t changed. When people are confronted with the actual issues and severe difficulties of independence, rather than the latest Tory bogeyman, then a comfortable majority of them remain supportive of the union.