IT’S NOT ABOUT INDEPENDENCE!
Critics mock Sturgeon for new General Election claim
‘Turning into a laughing stock’
NICOLA Sturgeon is facing pressure from within her own party to make a manifesto pledge to demand an independence referendum if she wins a majority of Scottish seats.
An influential pro-independence campaign group to which the SNP is affiliated has called for the party to seek a mandate for a referendum in the General Election.
The Scottish Independence Convention’s (SIC) intervention comes just a day after Miss Sturgeon attempted to stop the Tory surge by claiming that the election has nothing to do with independence.
Yesterday, the Conservatives said the SNP leader is becoming a ‘laughing stock’ for attempting to claim votes for her party won’t be used to push her case for independence.
Actress Elaine C Smith, convener of the SIC and a friend of Miss Sturgeon, said: ‘The best way to make this election count for Scotland is to back parties that will offer Scotland the chance to take a different future to the one on offer.
‘The Scottish Independence Convention is saying that if Scotland votes for a simple, straightforward majority of pro-indy MPs then that will add to the overwhelming mandate that already exists from the last Scottish election. We hope the parties will commit to this in their manifestos.’
Opinion polls published last weekend showed the Conservatives on course to win up to 12 seats in Scotland, while the SNP cur- rently faces losing up to 11 of the seats it won in 2015.
It suggests growing numbers of pro-Union voters who backed the SNP two years ago because they were told the party would be ‘stronger for Scotland’ and would not use their vote to demand a second independence referendum are now switching to the Tories.
In an attempt to stop the exodus of pro-Union voters from her party, Miss Sturgeon insisted on Monday that the General Election ‘won’t decide whether or not Scotland will becomes independent’, and claimed that she has already secured a mandate for another referendum.
But the SIC, to which the SNP, Greens and Scottish Socialists are affiliated, wants her to include a manifesto pledge on a second referendum to increase the pressure on Theresa May.
Miss Sturgeon had been due to announce her ‘next steps’ to securing another referendum after the Easter recess, but her spokesman yesterday said this has now been delayed until after the June election.
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said: ‘The First Minister risks turning herself into a laughing stock here. For the last few months, everyone in Scotland has seen her do nothing else but campaign for an unwanted second independence referendum. Yet now there’s an election on, she suddenly tells people independence isn’t the issue for her and orders her troops: “Don’t mention the ‘i’ word”.’
A former Nationalist MP at the centre of a police probe has announced that she will not stand for re-election.
The party whip was withdrawn last year from Glasgow East MP Natalie McGarry who was charged over over a ‘missing money’ scandal.
The SNP announced that she would not be allowed to represent the party in the election, and Miss McGarry has now confirmed on her Facebook page that she will not seek election as an independent.