Support for Scottish independence has risen to its highest point in the past four years, largely driven by voters who want to remain in the European Union, according to a poll published on Saturday.
As the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) meetsfor its spring conference, the YouGov poll showed support for secession fromthe United Kingdom had risen to 49 percent from 45 percent at the last YouGovpoll carried out for The Times in June 2018.
Scots rejected independence by 45-55 percent in a 2014referendum. Then the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in a 2016referendum, but among its four nations Scotland and Northern Ireland voted tostay, feeding political tension.
Britain is mired in political chaos and it is still unclear when or even if it will leave the EU.
YouGov also found that 53 percent of Scots thought thereshould not be another referendum on independence within the next five years.Scotland's First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon is pushing for onebefore 2021, when the current Scottish parliamentary terms ends.
YouGov polled 1029 adults in Scotland following a newguideline on independence set out by Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeonon Wednesday.
The poll also showed voters moving away from both theConservatives and the Labour Party north of the English border.
The Scottish Conservatives, part of Prime Minister TheresaMay's Conservative Party, are set to lose their only representative in theEuropean Parliament in next month's election as 40 percent of those who backedthem two years ago switch to Nigel Farage's Brexit Party.
"These patterns represent a clear warning to theUnionist camp that the pursuit of Brexit might yet produce a majority forindependence," Professor John Curtice, Britain's leading polling expert,wrote in a column for The Times.
