The Scottish National party is to discuss “alternative routes” to a second referendum on independence, as tensions rise among members about what to do if Boris Johnson’s government refuses to approve such a vote.
Delegates to the SNP virtual annual conference on Sunday overwhelming backed a motion welcoming plans for a “national assembly” in January, a move leaders hope will ease divisions within the party over strategy and other issues.
Any attempt to achieve Scottish independence without UK co-operation would be hugely controversial and could risk constitutional conflict of the sort that has convulsed relations between the Spanish and Catalan governments in recent years.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister and SNP leader, has said a second referendum should be approved by Westminster in order to be legally incontestable, despite increasing impatience among many in the party and wider pro-independence movement.
In his speech on the second day of the three-day conference, SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford lavishly praised Ms Sturgeon for her leadership. Mr Johnson’s rejection of a second referendum would be unsustainable if — as polls suggest — elections in May result in another pro-independence majority in the Scottish parliament, Mr Blackford said.
“We can only complete this journey together,” the Ross, Skye and Lochaber MP said in a clear appeal for party unity to which he added a Scots appeal for calm. “Keep the heid [head] and keep the faith,” he said.
The Conservative UK government says it will not approve any rerun of the 2014 independence referendum, which was billed at the time by Ms Sturgeon and other SNP leaders as a “once in a generation” event.
The SNP conference motion argued Brexit and the actions of the UK government, including internal market legislation that experts say will cut across Scotland’s current devolved powers, meant there had been a “material change in circumstances” since 2014.
“[The party] national assembly will initiate a discussion on alternative routes to secure a legal referendum should the Westminster government continue to resist the wishes of the people of Scotland for another referendum,” it said.
Some SNP delegates complained that the vague motion fell far short of the urgency needed. “What are we waiting for?” David Henry told the online conference session.
Joanna Cherry, a high-profile SNP MP, in a speech on Friday said the UK had no constitutional bar on Scottish independence and that the party should be exploring legal options for another referendum.
Kenny MacAskill, another SNP MP and former Scottish cabinet secretary, this week insisted the party should not wait until after the May elections to lay the ground for independence even without Westminster approval.
“Britain has never been weaker, except perhaps in a time of war. This is the optimum time for Scotland to strike for its independence,” Mr MacAskill wrote in a post on Friday on the popular pro-independence blog Wings over Scotland.
Mr MacAskill’s choice of an online publication that has in recent months been bitterly critical of his party was itself an indication of the divisions among independence campaigners despite what multiple polls suggest is unprecedented levels of public support for leaving the UK.
Wings blog author Stuart Campbell wrote this week that a cancer was “tearing the SNP apart from the inside”, citing what he called “the abandonment of any practical intention to achieve independence”, a “pandemic of corruption” and “the betrayal of voters” with unpopular policies “snuck in on the back of votes for independence”.