33% of Scots would vote against staying in EU

The EU Referendum Bill is to be debated in the House ofCommons on Tuesday. Picture: Getty

A survey of 1,000 Scots conducted for the think-tank British Future found that 33.7 per cent of those sampled either definitely wanted to be out of Europe or were “leaning” out.

More than half (53.5 per cent) were inclined to vote to remain in the EU, leaving 12.8 per cent who did not know which way to vote. Just over half (51 per cent) of Scots did not trust David Cameron when he talked about remaining in Europe while 40 per cent did trust him; 53 per cent of Scots trusted Nicola Sturgeon on the same issue, compared with 53 per cent of people across Britain who did not trust her on Europe.

The survey’s results confirm the notion that Scotland is more pro-European than those south of the Border. The overall survey of 4,000 people across Britain found that the proportion of English people who were inclined to vote against EU membership came to 41.3 per cent.

Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, said: “It’s well-known that Scotland is a bit keener on Europe than the English, as confirmed in this survey. But in a referendum where every vote counts, Scotland’s pro-EU establishment still has some work to do – a third of Scots have more sympathy with the ‘out’ camp.

“Like the rest of Britain, the EU referendum is still up for grabs for either side.”

The EU Referendum Bill is to be debated in the Commons on Tuesday. One of the founding fathers of devolution, Canon Kenyon Wright, has appealed to Cameron to agree to SNP demands that there need to be individual majorities in all four nations for the UK to leave the EU.

In an article published on scotsman.com, Wright, the chairman of the Constitutional Convention, says: “I warn David Cameron – if you deny this, and if the vote were for Brexit, the call for a new referendum on independence would become irresistible in Scotland.”