A referendum on Scottish independence would have been lost by a wide margin if it had been taken over the past week, when controversy has been raging around the issue.
A referendum on Scottish independence would have been lost by a wide margin if it had been taken over the past week, when controversy has been raging around the issue.
Less than one-third of Scottish voters, 31%, would support Scotland "becoming an independent state", according to a new opinion poll, while 43% would be against it.
Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP deputy leader, took a positive message out of the remaining 26% who remain to be convinced, saying "there is all to play for" once the SNP set out their plans.
The poll, by Scottish Opinion on behalf of STV, gave a clearer thumbs-down to independence when it went on to ask how people might vote if they also had the option of devolution with extra powers going to Holyrood.
More than half of those in the sample of 1051 people, questioned between May 6 and 13, gave their first preference to the option of extra powers. The independence option only narrowly beat the status quo choice into second.
The first choice figures were 50.1% for extra powers, while independence secured 25.1% and no change was third placed with 24.8%. The questions were put to a sample of Scottish people at a time when the prospect of an independence referendum became front-page news and seemed likely to happen.
Labour was in turmoil over its strategy on calling such a vote, with Holyrood leader Wendy Alexander suddenly shifting to call for a snap referendum, but Prime Minister Gordon Brown refused to back her. It is less clear now whether Labour will let the SNP have the referendum the Scottish Government wants in 2010.
The findings were around the middle range of recent polls on independence, which have varied widely from only 19% for "a completely separate nation" to 41% for negotiating a settlement with the UK Government so Scotland becomes "an independent state" - the wording planned by the SNP.
Scottish Greens have called for the SNP's national conversation to be merged with the Unionists' commission on extra powers, under Sir Kenneth Calman, saying the public need more clarity.
Their call was backed by Canon Kenyon Wright, a leader of the Scottish Constitutional Convention in the early-1990s.
"The opposing initiatives taken by politicians are either incredible or insufficient," he said yesterday.
"Alex Salmond's National Conversation has the merit of being open to all opinions, but lacks a clear process or a way of monitoring results."
