Support for Scottish independence has risen to 52 percent, its highest level in three and a half years, according to a poll conducted just before Britain left the European Union.
The survey, published Monday night, was carried out for the Scot Goes Pop political blog and the pro-independence The National newspaper by online survey body Panelbase, between January 28 and 31.
It is the third poll in the past two weeks to suggest support for independence was growing and hovering at about 50 percent.
Scots voted by 55 percent to remain part of the United Kingdom in a 2014 referendum in what was described by nationalists at the time as a “once in a generation” vote.
But Scottish National Party leader and First Minister of the devolved government in Edinburgh, Nicola Sturgeon, said Brexit has caused a “material change” in circumstances.
She maintains Scotland is being dragged out of the EU against its will, as Scots voted by 62 percent to remain part of the bloc.
She has vowed to intensify the fight for the right to hold a new independence referendum — dubbed indyref2 — and force UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to formally transfer powers for the vote.
Johnson has refused to grant permission.
The SNP is due to publish a series of papers in the coming months arguing the case for Scotland to go its own way and end the three-centuries-old union with the rest of Britain.
Scot Goes Pop editor James Kelly described the latest poll as “the best result for ‘Yes’ in any poll… since the immediate aftermath of the EU referendum in the summer of 2016”.
But he added: “It remains to be seen what impact the reality of leaving the EU will have.
“It could be that it will push ‘Yes’ higher, although the counter-argument is that the minimal change during the transitional period (of Britain leaving the EU this year) could lead to a false sense of security.”
Last week a poll by the Survation agency found support for independence in Scotland at 50 per cent, while a YouGov poll two weeks ago put support for independence at 51 per cent.
Scottish parliamentary elections are due to be held next year, in what is widely seen as the next major public test of support for independence.
