Ex-SNP spin doctor Kevin Pringle: Yes vote would win in 2018

ALEX Salmond's former spin doctor has predicted a Yes vote would triumph if a referendum for Scottish independence was held in 2018.

Kevin Pringle. Picture: Toby Williams/TSPL

Kevin Pringle said he believed the Yes side would be successful next year due to the “Brexit situation”.

Speaking on BBC Sunday Politics Scotland Pringle, now partner at PR firm CharlotteStPartners, said support for Yes was already at 45 per cent, a more advantageous starting point than the first indyref vote, where support started at 30 per cent.

Pringle said: “My own view is that it will be much easier to get people back again - if you like, the stray Yessers - and even if that is all that happened then the referendum, if there’s to be another, would be a Yes.

“I think the framing of the referendum would be the Brexit situation, but what Nicola Sturgeon would be keen to do it put Brexit in the context of the democratic deficit which Scotland faces.

“What Brexit is is an extreme example of the democratic deficit. Since 2010 there has been a UK government with the support of just one Member of Parliament in Scotland.

“The English equivalent of that would be England being governed by a party which has the support of nine MPs out of 533 - obviously ridiculous and could never happen,” he added.