First minister tells Boris Johnson she has renewed mandate after winning 47 of Scotland’s 59 seats
Nicola Sturgeon has challenged Boris Johnson to give Scotland the powers to hold a second independence referendum after the Scottish National party won a landslide in the general election.
The first minister said she had won “a renewed, refreshed and strengthened mandate” to call for a fresh independence vote after winning 47 of Scotland’s 59 Westminster seats, 11 more than in 2017.
In the most dramatic result, the SNP unseated Jo Swinson, the Liberal Democrat leader, in East Dunbartonshire by 149 votes, leaving the party leaderless.
Sturgeon said on Friday the Conservatives had focused their campaign in Scotland on opposing a second referendum but had been roundly defeated, hit by a series of losses at the hands of the SNP in seats including Stirling, Angus and Gordon.
“I don’t pretend that every single person who voted SNP yesterday will necessarily support independence, but there has been a strong endorsement in this election of Scotland having a choice over our future; of not having to put up with a Conservative government we didn’t vote for and not having to accept life as a nation outside the EU,” she said.
