Boris Johnson risks “confrontation” with the Scottish people if he refuses SNP requests for indyref2, Ian Blackford claims.
Mr Blackford told the prime minister that last week’s Holyrood poll, which saw the SNP win a fourth consecutive term, opened “the democratic path” to a second independence referendum.
The SNP Westminster leader said the Tories needed to “recognise what happened” and warned that there would be consequences if Westminster refused to do so.
He said: “Let me say to the prime minister, that any confrontation will not be with the SNP if they seek to deny Scottish democracy.
“The confrontation will be with the people of Scotland.”
Mr Blackford, speaking in the Queen’s Speech debate, said: “Last Thursday, the people of Scotland turned out in record numbers, the highest turnout that we have seen at a Scottish parliamentary election, to re-elect the SNP Government for a fourth consecutive term.
“They turned out to support that message of hope and change so brilliantly characterised by our First Minister. It was an election that broke nearly every record in the book and it is a result that will continue to reverberate.
“That electoral earthquake now opens the democratic path that will shape Scotland’s future. And let’s be clear – that future will be in Scotland’s hands and it will be the people’s choice and nobody, nobody else.”
He continued: “The promise that we made to the people of Scotland was if they voted for us in that election, if they delivered a majority for independence in that parliament, that nobody, not the prime minister, will stop the people of Scotland having a democratic choice.
“There is a mandate for an independence referendum and let me put this House on notice – it’s the people of Scotland and our Parliament that will determine when that independence referendum will take place.”
Mr Johnson told the Commons that the Union has “seldom proved its worth more emphatically” than during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Blackford warns the PM that he is in for a ‘confrontation’ with the Scottish people if he refuses to hand Holyrood the powers to hold a second referendum
— Dan O'Donoghue (@MrDanDonoghue) May 11, 2021
He said: “Everything we do will be done as one United Kingdom, combining the genius of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
“Joined together by blood and family, tradition and history into the most successful political economic and social union the world has ever known.
“In all its centuries the Union has seldom proved its worth more emphatically than during this pandemic, when the United Kingdom – the fifth-biggest economy in the world – had the power to invest over £407 billion to protect jobs and livelihoods and businesses everywhere in these islands, including one in three jobs in Scotland safeguarded by the combined resources of Her Majesty’s Treasury under the Chancellor.”
Alex Salmond says UK Government could use ‘shadow organisation’ to challenge indyref2 in court