Scotland’s voters find ‘Yes’ drive more effective

Most voters in Scotland think the campaign for independence from the UK has been more effective than the fight to save the union, according to a poll published with 100 days to go until the September 18 referendum.

The Ipsos Mori survey for STV News will fuel criticism of the cross-party Better Together campaign against independence, which many voters complain has been uninspiring and overly negative.

The poll follows a warning from Gordon Brown, former prime minister, who said on Monday that the main UK political parties’ stress on the negative consequences of a split had backfired.

The survey highlights the challenge facing nationalists. Despite widespread disapproval of the No camp’s performance, there is still a clear majority against independence in all surveys.

“The nationalist are running out of arguments and they are running out of time,” said Alistair Darling, head of Better Together and former UK chancellor.

The poll found that 51 per cent of voters thought Yes Scotland, the pro-independence campaign, had been most effective, while only 23 per cent chose Better Together. Results previously released from the poll, conducted between May 26 and June 1, showed the No camp campaign leading in referendum voting intentions by 54 per cent to the Yes campaign’s 36 per cent, with 10 per cent of respondents still undecided.

Mark Diffley, Ipsos Mori Scotland director, said while the nationalists had made progress in narrowing the gap, there would need to be a “significant change” in opinions for Yes to secure victory.

Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, said 100 days was still plenty of time, citing his Scottish National party’s shock landslide victory in Scotland’s 2011 parliamentary election. “If you average all the polls then I think we need a 6 per cent swing,” Mr Salmond told BBC Scotland. “In the months before the last Scottish elections we got a 16 per cent swing in this sort of timescale.”

The first minister took encouragement from the relatively high popularity of leaders of the independence campaign compared with their pro-union opponents. Satisfaction with Mr Salmond’s performance has risen 7 points since February to a positive net rating of 5 per cent, while Mr Darling’s rating has fallen 13 points to minus 16, according to Ipsos Mori.

John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, said it would take a big development, such as a transformation of the economic outlook or No campaign crisis, to deliver the in the polls needed by the Yes side. “The trouble is that this referendum is about a much more fundamental question than who you want to run the government for the next five years,” Prof Curtice said. “There are not that many people who can be easily persuaded.”

The SNP is trying to win over female voters in particular, an effort highlighted on Monday by an event bringing together all female cabinet members, with women from 130 organisations across Scotland. Ipsos Mori says half of men but only 28 per cent of women in Scotland now back independence.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s deputy first minister, said independence would bring opportunities to transform childcare, raise the minimum wage, deliver fair pensions, close the gender pay gap and build a better social security system.

“No one else will ever do a better job of running our country than we will,” Ms Sturgeon said. “Independence means decisions about Scotland will be taken by the people who care most about Scotland – by those of us who live here, work here, run businesses and raise children here.”