The Scotland independence movement has failed in a countrywide vote today, if the first polling result to come out of that country is accurate. The early poll by the Britain-based research firm YouGov, released shortly after polls closed in the Scotland referendum, showed Scots rejecting the breakaway drive by a full 8 percentage points, with “No” votes winning, 54 percent to 46 percent.
“At risk of looking utterly ridiculous in a few hours time, I would say it’s a 99 per cent chance of a No victory,” YouGov’s Peter Kellner told London’s Independent newspaper . “From the polling we did earlier in the week, it looked as if the No voters felt they had more to lose if they were on the losing side than the Yes supporters.”
The YouGov results align closely with a London Evening Standard poll taken just before voting on the Scotland independence referendum voting began. That poll found the “No” vote prevailing by a 53 to 47 margin.
Kellner said that if “Yes” ends up winning once official ballots are tallied, than YouGov “have something badly wrong.”
The YouGov poll is not the same as an “exit poll,” of the kind familiar to observers of U.S. elections. YouGov canvassed 2,628 voters, all of whom had been polled by YouGov earlier in the week.
The YouGov results were not unexpected, given other recent polls, such as the Evening Standard poll, but just two weeks earlier, a YouGov survey showed “Yes” votes — those in favor of Scotland independence — prevailing by a slight margin. The shift appears to show that as the reality of ending Scotland’s three-century old marriage with England and the rest of the United Kingdom drew closer to reality, Scottish voters found the prospect less and less appealing.
The official verdict on Scotland independence is likely to be revealed on Friday morning.
YouGov’s research manager Laurence Janta-Lipinski said that the company’s surveys showed “a small but significant late swing from ‘Yes’ to ‘No’ on polling day.”
“It look like the union will remain intact for the time being,” Janta-Lipinski told Newsweek magazine after the polls had closed on Scotland independence voting.
