David Cameron does not believe that Nicola Sturgeon will have a mandate to call a second referendum on independence even if she wins a clear majority in Thursday’s election, according to senior government sources.
The prime minister is also adamant that the Scottish National Party leader should not be able to put the question to Scots again “on a whim” just because the polls have shifted in favour of separation.
While No 10 insiders refused to go as far as saying that he would block a fresh vote, they made clear that he would not make it easy for her to call one whenever she wanted. A senior government source said: “The SNP manifesto does not contain a mandate for a referendum. There cannot be another referendum on the whim of Nicola Sturgeon.”
This hardline approach follows claims from opposition leaders in Scotland that Ms Sturgeon is being “undemocratic” in trying to keep independence on the table.
The SNP leader said at the weekend that she believed there would be a further poll on separation within five years and also that she would be right to call one if a majority of Scots wanted it.
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However, the SNP manifesto for the Scottish parliamentary election does not contain a clear commitment to hold another referendum. Instead, it says that the Scottish parliament will reserve the right to call one only if opinion in Scotland shifts in favour of independence or if the country’s circumstances change substantially.
It is this desire to keep options open — despite the SNP’s assertion that the 2014 vote was a “once in a generation” event — that has angered Ms Sturgeon’s opponents and placed independence back at the top of the political agenda in the last days of the campaign.
It is understood that Mr Cameron does not want to be seen to be standing in the way of the will of the Scottish people for another referendum but equally he does not want Ms Sturgeon to be able to pick the timing to suit herself and her party. A Downing Street source pointed out that the last referendum took place only after a piece of authorising legislation was passed by Westminster.
He suggested that another similar law would have to be passed to allow a second poll and this might take time and be harder to pass than the first one.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme Ms Sturgeon repeated her claim that a referendum would be justified if the people of Scotland wanted it.
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She refused to be drawn into how many opinion polls it would take and over what period for that to become clear.
“It’s not an opinion poll, it’s not a couple of opinion polls, it’s not a flash in the pan, it’s evidence over a sustained period of time,” she said.
“We would have to see, in a range of polls over a period of time, that independence had become the preferred option of a majority.”
The SNP leader argued that she was the one being “democratic”, not her opponents.
Ms Sturgeon said: “If there is no shift in opinion from that we saw expressed in 2014, I don’t think we would have the right to propose a second independence referendum.
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“But, on the other side of that argument, if we do see a shift . . . and independence becomes the clear preferred option of a majority of people in Scotland, I don’t think it would be right for politicians to stand in the way of that.”