A CROWDFUNDING campaign for a new poll to gauge current support for Scottish independence has smashed its target within 24 hours of its launch.

Yes supporter James Kelly, who runs the Scot Goes Pop blog, launched the drive yesterday, with the aim of raising £4000 to commission a poll asking the question: "Should Scotland be an independent country?"

He pointed out that the Yes movement had a "major gap in our knowledge" because no such poll had been carried out since the General Election, to measure the level of support for independence following the Tories' victory in England and the rise in support for the SNP in Scotland.

Kelly had told The National: "The Tory victory at UK level may have made Remain supporters realise that continued EU membership is now only possible with independence.

"But we can’t say for sure that Yes has enjoyed a boost because so far no post-election polls have been published. That constitutes a frustrating gap in our knowledge and perhaps makes the Downing Street spin operation somewhat easier.

"My blog Scot Goes Pop is stepping into the breach by crowdfunding a poll. It will ask the referendum question, 'Should Scotland be an independent country?', and hopefully some supplementary questions as well. Perhaps it will show a Yes lead, and Boris Johnson will be confronted with the unsettling reality that he is keeping the people of this country trapped in Brexit Britain against their will.

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"But whatever the poll shows, simply posing the independence question will be a timely reminder that it’s not in the gift of the UK Government to close the issue down for a generation or for a lifetime, and that any decision will ultimately be made by the Scottish people and not by Westminster politicians."

At 1pm today, the total raised stood at £5186, with 279 people having donated.

Their comments included "We need to know what the people of Scotland think, not what the Tory Government thinks," and "A full scale poll is critical to democracy in this country!"

Kelly said of the response to his appeal: "It demonstrates again that when something needs doing, the Yes movement doesn't sit around and hope that others will do it, we just get it done ourselves.

"The mysterious lack of independence polls since the election has been noticed by quite a few people, and there was obviously an appetite to put that right."

Kelly's Go Fund Me page can be found here.