Half of UK thinks Scotland should be allowed second independence referendum

More than half of people across the UK think Scotland should be allowed a second independence referendum within five years if the Scottish National party wins a majority in elections on May 6, a survey by polling company Ipsos Mori has found.

The survey of more than 8,500 people is likely to increase pressure on UK prime minister Boris Johnson to rethink his refusal to allow any rerun of the 2014 referendum in which Scots rejected independence by 55-45 per cent.

The May 6 Scottish parliamentary elections could prove a crucial moment for the UK’s constitutional future, with the SNP on Thursday unveiling plans for a referendum it hopes to hold by the end of 2023. Less than a quarter of the people Ipsos Mori surveyed across the UK said they thought the UK would still exist in its current form in a decade’s time.

Recent polls suggest the SNP is on course to win more than half of the 129 seats in the Scottish parliament next month, a remarkable feat given its proportionally representative voting system. Even if the SNP falls short, polls suggest there will continue to be a majority of pro-independence MSPs in the chamber at Holyrood in Edinburgh.

Ipsos Mori found 51 per cent of people across the UK believed the SNP should be allowed to hold another independence referendum within the next parliament’s five-year term if the party won a Holyrood majority. It found 40 per cent believed the UK government should block such a vote.

“Should the Scottish National party win a majority of seats, as currently looks likely if current levels of support hold, it will be much more difficult for the UK government to refuse a second referendum on independence,” said Emily Gray, managing director of Ipsos Mori Scotland.

SNP leaders portrayed the 2014 referendum as a “once in a generation” event, but argue that rising support for independence since and the UK’s exit from the EU — which was opposed by 62 per cent of Scottish voters — justify another vote on the constitutional question.

Johnson has repeatedly insisted he will not approve a second referendum, suggesting in January that one should not be permitted until the 2050s at least.

The UK government declined to comment directly on Ipsos Mori’s findings or how it would respond to an SNP majority, insisting instead that people in Scotland wanted to see the UK and devolved administrations “working together” and the push for a second referendum was irresponsible.

“The United Kingdom is the most successful political and economic union the world has ever seen,” the UK government said.

Ipsos Mori’s survey of its “knowledge panel”, which is made up of people randomly selected to be representative of opinion across the UK, highlighted widespread uncertainty about the country’s constitutional future.

It found only 24 per cent thought the UK would exist in its current form in 10 years’ time, compared with 53 per cent who thought it would not and 23 per cent who didn’t know. Almost 60 per cent of those surveyed thought Scottish independence would make the UK weaker, with 41 per cent saying it would make them “mostly sad”.