Poll: 49% of Britons think Scotland will leave UK

Almost half of the British electorate believe it's likely Scotland will become independent within a decade, according to a poll published today.

SNP supporters have gathered in Glasgow for the party's annual conference. Picture: John Devlin/TSPL

The prospect of Scots leaving the Union is back on the agenda following Nicola Sturgeon’s opening address to the SNP conference in Glasgow yesterday, in which the First Minister made clear she was prepared to call a new referendum in the wake of June’s Brexit vote.

Polling by Sky found that 49 per cent of voters from across the UK rate the chances of Scottish independence as “likely” to happen within 10 years, while 43 per cent viewed it unlikely.

In contrast, 72 per cent of respondents said Scottish independence would have been unlikely had the UK voted to remain in the European Union; 20 per cent said it would have been likely even had the country voted Remain.

Speaking to the BBC this morning, Sturgeon said: “Scotland is in a position just now we didn’t ask to be in,” she told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

“We have been put into this position by, largely, the Conservative Party and if as a result of that there is a view in the Scottish Parliament that the best way to protect our interests is to offer the choice of independence again, the idea that the same party that put us into that position would then deny us that choice I just find inconceivable.”