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As many as 35% of voters would back independence for Wales if the country could stay in the European Union as the rest of the UK left the EU, an opinion poll has shown.

The YouGov poll for ITV Wales and Cardiff University asked voters three questions relating to Welsh independence.

In response to the question “Should Wales be an independent country?”, 15% responded Yes and 65% No, with 20% responding that they wouldn’t vote or didn’t know.

Professor Roger Scully, of Cardiff University’s Wales Governance Centre, said: “This is a clear majority against Welsh independence.

“If we take out the undecideds and those who suggest that they wouldn’t vote the margin is 81% to 19% against independence.

“This is almost exactly the same as it was when the question was asked in September 2014.

“In short there has been no rise at all in support for independence. Even a (narrow) majority of Plaid Cymru supporters are actually opposed to the idea.”

Prof Scully said rather than leave things there he and his colleagues decided to run a couple of additional questions.

He added: “These questions asked our respondents about even more hypothetical situations; that probably means that their results should be interpreted with particular caution, as they required our respondents to make significant leaps of the imagination.

“But with those qualifiers entered here is what we found.

“First, we asked people ‘Suppose that Scotland voted to become an independent country and a referendum was then held in Wales about becoming an independent country. If this was the question how would you vote? Should Wales be an independent country?’

“Did this make a great difference? Not very much. Here were the results we obtained: Yes: 19%; No: 61%; Would Not Vote/Don’t Know: 21%.

“If we take out the undecideds and those who suggest that they wouldn’t vote the margin is now 76% to 24% against independence.

“This is still a very heavy majority against independence.

“About the only encouraging thing for supporters of independence here is that the equivalent majority was even higher (at 80% to 20%) in September 2014.”

Finally the poll asked a question which hasn’t been run before and which followed directly on from the EU referendum .

“And please imagine a scenario where the rest of the UK left the European Union but Wales could remain a member of the European Union if it became an independent country.

“If a referendum was then held in Wales about becoming an independent country and this was the question how would you vote? Should Wales be an independent country?”

(Image: Rob Browne)

The results to this question were: Yes – 28%; No – 53%; Would Not Vote/Don’t Know – 20%.

Prof Scully said: “So now we see things appearing a little more evenly-balanced.

“But note that opposition to independence for Wales still leads by almost two to one: if we take out non-committed voters then things balance out at 65% to 35% against independence.

“This is still a very clear margin although now we do at least see a majority of Plaid Cymru voters supporting independence in this scenario; we also see a narrow plurality of Labour voters also endorsing independence here.

“The overall message appears to be that while Brexit might reopen the discussion on Welsh independence there is little sign that the Leave vote in the EU referendum has yet inclined growing numbers of people to vote Leave in a referendum on Welsh independence from the UK.”