LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th December, 2019) Scotland may experience a serious "upheaval" if its government goes for its "triple locked mandate" to call a second independence referendum but London rejects its request despite the Scottish nationalists' victory in the recent general election, Kenny Ross, the assistant national secretary of Scotland's pro-independence Solidarity party, told Sputnik.
In Thursday's general election, the Conservative Party won an absolute majority in the House of Commons. The Scottish National Party (SNP) also showed good results and increased the number of seats in the regional legislature. The first minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, has swiftly confirmed that her SNP party would raise the issue of a second referendum and the government would not have the opportunity to ignore it. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, however, reiterated his opposition to the vote, saying that the region's population clearly spoke out for the future as part of the UK in 2014.
"If Johnson refuses the Section 30 [under Scotland Act] request [to call a referendum] then there's going to be political upheaval in Scotland. There's a level of hypocrisy in terms of what the Tories are saying. They are saying we need to see the outcome of elections to the Scottish Parliament in 2021. But there's already a triple lock mandate for Indyref2," Ross said.
The politician recalled that the SNP party believed that it had already won a "triple lock mandate" for a new independence vote. The first one is its victory in the 2016 Scottish parliamentary elections. The second mandate was secured when a majority in the regional legislature in 2017 backed the call for a second referendum, while the third one was a convincing result in the 2017 general election.
"So if Boris Johnson has got a mandate for Brexit then it stands to reason that the SNP have a mandate for an independence referendum," Ross said.
Sturgeon yet may find it difficult to push through the referendum idea even in the aftermath of her party winning 48 out of 59 of Scotland's parliamentary seats in last week's general election, according to Ross.
"The difficulty in my view is that Sturgeon has closed herself in to a single avenue here, as in going through the Section 30 ... The fact she's absolutely correct in the view of many that she's got a mandate for independence and it should be respected, well the Tories can simply ignore that. And I suspect they will. So what does she do? I don't think going through the legal route, the courts, is wise as if the court rules against her, and it could, then it's finished. So she's limited herself," he said.
The SNP's success in the general election and subsequent call for a second referendum has, meanwhile, attracted the attention of nationalists outside of Scotland. Speaking to Sputnik on Tuesday, Sion Jobbins, the chairman of the pro-Welsh independence group YesCymru, said that a successful Scottish independence referendum could potentially lead to other segments of the UK breaking away.
"All eyes are on Scotland, from our perspective. I cannot see how Scotland won't go for independence, Sturgeon has to," he said.
Scotland, in turn, will be followed by Northern Ireland, according to the politician.
"Unless they are Tories, who is going to make the case for the union in a referendum? So this is the end of the United Kingdom, although a question for us in Wales, and I don't know the answer to that, is that is this the end of Wales as a devolved nation? Scotland will go, and if that happens [Northern] Ireland will then go with a soft form of unification, I think," he said.
As for Wales, it would prefer independence to be a "slower process," Jobbins said, adding that much would depend on the type of Brexit the UK gets.
Scots voted 55 percent to 45 percent to stay in the United Kingdom in the 2014 independence vote but overwhelmingly rejected Brexit two years later. Sturgeon has since repeatedly said she would not let Scotland be dragged out of the EU.
Nearly 56 percent in Northern Ireland also voted "Remain" in the 2016 referendum, while the majority in Wales and England supported the "Leave" option.
