Scottish Independence Referendum - 18 September 2014

[Clyde1998]

Hi everyone.

Sorry for posting in a thread that no-one has posted in for over a month and on a "dead" topic (at this stage), but I've had a look at the vote shares per council area to try and find a pattern in the results - something that the BBC and Sky were struggling to do on the night.

Yes vote compared to DE social grade
Note: The DE% are the proportion of people living in that council area that fall into the DE social grade (the most impoverished people)

Council Area (Top 10 DE% shown) - DE% - Yes% - Yes Rank

• Inverclyde - 35.1% - 49.9% - 5th
• North Ayrshire - 34.8% - 48.9% - 6th
• West Dunbartonshire - 34.4% - 54.0% - 2nd
• Glasgow City - 34.0% - 53.5% - 3rd
• North Lanarkshire - 33.1% - 51.1% - 4th
• East Ayrshire - 32.8% - 47.2% - 7th
• Clackmannanshire - 32.4% - 46.2% - 12th
• Dundee City - 32.4% - 57.3% - 1st
• Dumfries & Galloway - 31.9% - 34.3% - 30th
• Renfrewshire - 29.8% - 47.2% - 8th

All of the top eight council areas to vote yes, were in the top ten areas with the highest proportion of people in the DE social grade category. Of course, there is an exception with Dumfries & Galloway, however that's most likely due to having a large English born population (around 18%) compared to the rest of Scotland.

Verdict: I calculated a tolerance of 66.5% between a high DE social grade and a high yes vote.

Yes vote compared to 1997 Vote
Note: I'm only taking into account the proportion of people in each council area who voted for there to be a Scottish Parliament. The question of taxation powers for the parliament is not considered.

Council Area (ordered by 1997% vote) - 1997% - 2014% (Rank)

• West Dunbartonshire - 84.7% - 54.0% (2)
• Glasgow City - 83.6% - 53.5% (3)
• North Lanarkshire - 82.6% - 51.1% (4)
• East Ayrshire - 81.1% - 47.2% (7)
• Falkirk - 80.0% - 46.5% (11)
• Clackmannanshire - 80.0% - 46.2% (12)
• Midlothian - 79.9% - 43.7% (16)
• West Lothian - 79.6% - 44.8% (15)
• Eilean Siar - 79.4% - 46.6% (10)
• Renfrewshire - 79.0% - 47.2% (8.)
• Inverclyde - 78.0% - 49.9% (5)
• South Lanarkshire - 77.8% - 45.3% (13)
• North Ayrshire - 76.3% - 48.9% (6)
• Fife - 76.1% - 45.0% (14)
• Dundee City - 76.0% - 57.3% (1)
• East Lothain - 74.2% - 38.3% (27)
• Highland - 72.6% - 47.1% (9)
• Edinburgh City - 71.9% - 38.9% (25)
• Aberdeen City - 71.8% - 41.4% (21)
• East Dunbartonshire - 69.8% - 38.8% (26)
• Stirling - 68.5% - 40.2% (22)
• Argyll & Bute - 67.3% - 41.5% (20)
• Moray - 67.2% - 42.4% (18)
• South Ayrshire - 66.9% - 42.1% (19)
• Angus - 64.7% - 43.7% (17)
• Aberdeenshire - 63.9% - 39.6% (24)
• Scottish Borders - 62.8% - 33.4% (31)
• Shetland - 62.4% - 36.3% (29)
• Perth & Kinross - 61.7% - 39.8% (23)
• East Renfrewshire - 61.7% - 36.8% (28)
• Dumfries & Galloway - 60.7% - 34.3% (30)
• Orkney - 57.3% - 32.8% (32)

Generally, the highest yes votes in 1997, were the highest yes votes in 2014. One exception to this being Dundee City - which had the highest yes vote in 2014, but only the 15th highest yes vote in 1997.

Verdict: Despite the Dundee City anomaly, there was a 82.0% tolerance between the two referendum results.

Other noted patterns

• There was a strong tolerance between a higher life expectancy and a higher no vote. (80.1%)
• There was a surprise pattern between the percentage of Catholics in a council area and a yes vote. (61.7%)
• There was a pattern between the percentage of people who have a "British Only National Identity" in a council area and a no vote in that council area. (70.0%)
• There was a strong tolerance between child poverty in a council area and a higher yes vote. (75.7%)

Notes

• All data is from the 2011 Scottish Census, excluding life expectancy, child poverty rates and social grade - which is from aggregated local council data.
• Due to having less than 20 posts, I was unable to add graphs and clearer tables to this post.

[Clyde1998]

Thanks to Clyde1998 for the useful correlations.

Yes, the Catholic thing was mentioned on here at the time (on the results thread, not this one), but it's good to see it confirmed that it appears in the data.  In most areas, of course, we only have authority-level data, but it was also observed in the results thread that in the more local data released by North Lanarkshire council Airdrie was more No than Coatbridge.  (For those who don't know, these are neighbouring towns but Airdrie is very Protestant and Coatbridge very Catholic.)

The socio-economic factors make sense as well; I noticed at the time that in the Glasgow area the middle class suburban districts (East Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire) were quite strongly No while the rest of the area tended to Yes.

I think there was a tendency in the media to expect that areas with SNP MPs would be strongest for Yes, but it didn't play out like that (barring Dundee East, I suppose).

Is it the case that:
1. Yes vote is "caused" by low socioeconomic status, in the sense that status pre-existed the vote and there does not seem to be any omitted variable;
2. Catholic districts are correlated with low socioeconomic status;
3. Controlling for 1, Catholic areas would not be significantly more likely to vote Yes
?

We need a logistic regression.

1 - YesScotland based their campaign on equality - if Scotland was independent, the country would be able to become more equal through changes in policies. The poorer areas would have seen this as an opportunity to increase their socio-economic status, where as richer people may have felt that it could hinder theirs.

2 - There is a 40.5% correlation between high Catholic population and a high DE economic status. The top four catholic areas (Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire, West Dunbartonshire, Glasgow) are in the top five for yes support. These are also the only areas where the Catholic population outnumbers the Protestant population. Dundee has a high DE population, but has a relatively lower Catholic population (compared to the aforementioned council areas) - Dundee had the highest Yes vote.

3 - Areas with a high Catholic population were more inclined to vote yes than areas with lower Catholic populations. However, areas with low Catholic populations were still above the national average for a yes vote - such a Highland.

[Clyde1998]

I suppose my question was about whether there was any difference between Catholics and Protestants of similar socioeconomic status.

I think Catholics generally voted yes and Protestants generally voted no (although Eilean Siar was around 46% yes, with a large Protestant population). However, only 14 council areas have a Catholic and Protestant total of 50% of their population, so the effect of religion would have been smaller in the remaining 18 areas.

[Clyde1998]

Alex Salmond is predicting another referendum in 2017.

With the SNP at 51% for the next Scottish election - it might well happen...

Scottish Parliament 2016 Projection (based on today's Survation poll)
SNP - 69 seats (N/C)
Labour - 28 seats (-9)
Conservative - 15 seats (N/C)
Green - 7 seats (+5)
UKIP - 5 seats (+5)
Lib Dem - 4 seats (-1)
Socialists - 1 seat (+1)
Independent - 0 seats (-1)

The pro-independence front is up to 77 (+5) in this projection, with the SNP staying strong and the Greens and Socialists gaining.

If the polls since the referendum are to be believed - then a majority want independence right now.

[Clyde1998]

Alex Salmond is predicting another referendum in 2017.

With the SNP at 51% for the next Scottish election - it might well happen...

Scottish Parliament 2016 Projection (based on today's Survation poll)
SNP - 69 seats (N/C)
Labour - 28 seats (-9)
Conservative - 15 seats (N/C)
Green - 7 seats (+5)
UKIP - 5 seats (+5)
Lib Dem - 4 seats (-1)
Socialists - 1 seat (+1)
Independent - 0 seats (-1)

The pro-independence front is up to 77 (+5) in this projection, with the SNP staying strong and the Greens and Socialists gaining.

If the polls since the referendum are to be believed - then a majority want independence right now.

And these polls showing independence ahead are, of course, hypothetical. Do you all really need reminding that in the real thing, just 3 months ago, 'No' won by a larger than expected margin.

Salmond isn't SNP leader anymore - so Sturgeon could put another referendum of the SNP manifesto for the 2016 Scottish election. Salmond did say in his interview - that he believes that there will be an EU referendum in 2017, which would trigger another independence referendum.

The polls only showed two yes leads in 2014 before the referendum. There have been three (of four) showing yes leads since the referendum. Even if independence isn't ahead, then there has almost certainly been movement towards that option.

The final opinion polls, for each pollster, of the referendum showed (including don't knows):
Ipsos Mori - 45% yes.
Survation - 43% yes.
YouGov - 45% yes.
Panelbase - 45% yes.
ICM - 41% yes.
Opinium - 43% yes.

Average - 43.7% yes. The undecided voters split 12.3% to yes and 87.7% to no, which isn't unrealistic.

[Clyde1998]

Vote again until you get it right

Neverendum.

[Clyde1998]

So, "a generation" apparently means three years.

The SNP are saying that there will only be another referendum earlier than in the next 10-15 years, if there is a major constitutional change in that time. A 2017 referendum would only take place, if there is a referendum on EU membership, where the UK votes to leave, but Scotland votes to stay - something that looks quite likely at this point.

[Clyde1998]

Had the Scots voted for independence would the BBC still have collected the licence fee from Scottish households and broadcast to the whole of the British Isles except for Eire?

I presume the alternative would have been similar to how they operate with regard to Eire and studiously avoid that country when doing the weather forecast as if it was a leper colony

Licence fees would have been payed to the Scottish Government in an independent Scotland to fund the SBS [Scottish Broadcasting Service].

The BBC is actually broadcast in the Republic of Ireland (Eire) due to RTÉ paying the BBC to do so. It wouldn't be surprising if the SBS would have done the same in an independent Scotland. The BBC however puts the Republic in it's Northern Ireland section - so all the local news is from Northern Ireland.

[Clyde1998]

The BBC is actually broadcast in the Republic of Ireland (Eire) due to RTÉ paying the BBC to do so.

I don't believe this is true. You can receive some BBC channels on the Astra satellite or by cable, but the Irish broadcaster doesn't pay for it - they are competitors at some very small margin (e.g. showing EastEnders). The equivalent would be to pay a Scottish cable company for their subscription package including UK channels.

I had a look:

Historically, people in Ireland were able to get the BBC due to analogue spill over.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0201/127070-communications/

Also, "The Memorandum commits the two Governments [UK & Ireland] to facilitating the widespread availability of RTE services in Northern Ireland on a free-to-air basis, and BBC services in Ireland on a paid for basis."

It seems to be the Irish Government who pay for the BBC.

Also see: UK Gov Website