Swinney says ‘precedent is on my side’ to secure indyref2

John Swinney has said the precedent set ahead of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum should trigger a new poll if the party wins a majority at the next Holyrood election.

The SNP won more than half of MSPs in 2011; it was an election victory that paved the way for a vote on the country’s future.

Delegates at the party’s conference in Aberdeen on Saturday backed his strategy ahead of a bid to make the next election a de facto poll on independence.

But Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander said the UK Labor government, which must approve the move, did not support a second referendum.

Sir Keir Starmer previously said: there were no plans to allow a new survey It will take place during the Prime Ministry term.

But Swinney said BBC Scotland’s Sunday Show The prime minister’s stance was said to be “foolish” because of the “clearly established basis” laid out following the SNP’s historic victory 14 years ago.

He added: “The precedent is on my side.

“This happened in 2011 too.

“And precedent is an important factor in the legal assessment of the right of the people of Scotland to decide their own future.”

The SNP leader said the result meant his party was in a “much stronger position”. negotiate authority for a new vote Do they need to get a majority next year?

Asked if the election would be about hot issues such as living standards, Swinney said: “I would say to people who are concerned about living standards, this election should be about independence.

“Because under the UK, people’s living standards have been the same as pancakes for 15 years.”

The first minister said Scotland needed to consider whether it should accept “more of this” as well as what he described as a “shift to the right” in UK politics.

He said the SNP was reducing NHS waiting lists and building more affordable homes.

Swinney added: “Self-government is in the interests of the people of Scotland and if we want to improve living standards let us choose the option of independence.”

Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon backed Swinney’s strategy, signing copies of his new memoir at the conference.

Sturgeon, who will leaving MSP He said reaching a majority next year was “an extremely difficult task.”

But he added: “If you don’t set your goals high, you won’t achieve great things.”

inside 2011 electionThe SNP, then led by the late Alex Salmond, won 69 of the 129 seats available.

The party has failed to win an outright majority in two Holyrood elections since then.

Salmond and then-Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron Signed the Edinburgh Agreement In October 2012.

It set out the terms of the 2014 vote under Section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998.

Scotland Voted against leaving the UK By a margin of 55.3% to 44.7% in September 2014.

Any new vote would require Starmer to give similar approval.

Alexander, who also appeared on the Sunday Show, said Swinney was using independence to divert attention from the SNP’s “horrible” record on public services.

He said he wasn’t sure whether he was listening to “the Grand Duke of York or the first minister of Scotland”.

Alexander added: “It’s all about marching your soldiers up that hall to the top of the hill and then back down again.

“We’ve heard all this before.”

Asked whether the UK government would say no to a second independence referendum, the Lothian East Labor MP said he was “working for victory” in the Holyrood elections in 2026 and was “not expecting defeat”.

Alexander told The Sunday Show: “I will not expose his ploy to divert attention from Scotland’s appallingly poor record on public services by trying to provoke a debate about the Constitution.”

Scottish Secretary, who replaced Ian Murray last monthIt was also questioned whether he had a “duty to voters” to outline what would happen if the SNP won a majority.

He replied: “I was elected in July 2024 with a very clear manifesto that said Labor did not support independence or any other referendum.

“This is the job for which I was elected and I will stick to it.”

John Swinney has hinted he has some tactics in mind to push the issue of a referendum if the SNP wins a big victory next year.

He may have betrayed one of these by talking about the legal importance of jurisprudence.

A speaker at the conference yesterday raised the possibility of a judicial review if UK ministers reject calls for a vote and was subsequently name-checked by Swinney on stage.

Could the first minister have a new case in mind?

The 2011 example may set a political precedent, but is there a legal precedent?

Ultimately, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that UK ministers must consent to a binding referendum.

Of course, we are way ahead of the game. There is still an election to be fought and a Holyrood majority is a difficult thing to achieve.

But some in the SNP are already thinking further ahead.

In fact, it has been suggested that Sir Keir Starmer’s rejection could be controversial, and that if the results in Scotland and Wales go against him, then he may well turn his ear and they will negotiate with someone else.

Scottish Conservative Party deputy leader Rachael Hamilton accused the first minister of distracting attention from “the SNP’s failures in government” by “desperately pushing the obsession with independence”.

He added: “Swinney, as always, is putting party before country by focusing on breaking the UK apart rather than fixing the damage his government has done to the NHS, our schools, jobs and economic growth.”

Liberal Democrat MSP Willie Rennie said the first minister was using the “crutch of independence” in a bid to restore the party’s fortunes.

He said: “John Swinney and the SNP need to talk about independence as a distraction because after almost two decades in office they have failed to deliver.

“People will understand the strategy because they want a change from the same old stuff.”