Nicola Sturgeon says Scotland cannot be ‘imprisoned in the UK against its will’

Speaking on BBC’s Andrew Marr show Nicola Sturgeon said her party had experienced an “emphatic victory” following the December 12 general election.

The Scottish First Minister said: “I’ve just won an election in Scotland on the proposition that people should have a choice over their future.

“They can’t stand in the way of the Scottish people. Fundamentally democracy has to be honoured.”

In Scotland, the SNP increased its share of the vote to 45 per cent, winning a greater proportion of the votes north of the border than the Tories did across the UK, and also increased its number of MPs at Westminster to 47.

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In contrast, the Tories – whose campaign in Scotland was focused on opposition to a second independence referendum – lost more than half their Scottish MPs, with this number falling from 13 to six.

Sturgeon told Marr: “With the greatest respect it’s the Conservatives that should be under real forensic pressure in interviews to say what their Brexit plan is.

“I’ve earned the right to pursue the plan I put before the Scottish people.

“I’m going to set out this week, the detailed democratic case for the transfer of power.”

Sturgeon claimed that by blocking such a ballot, the Tories were “raging against reality” and she warned Boris Johnson: “Scotland cannot be imprisoned in the Union against its will.”

The First Minister recalled that in the 1980s and 1990s, the Conservatives were “adamant there would never ever be a Scottish Parliament”, but added that they “couldn’t sustain that position because the will of the Scottish people was too strong and democracy ultimately was honoured”.

Speaking about the prime minister, she added: “If he thinks – and I said this to him on Friday night on the telephone – that saying no is the end of the matter, he is going to find himself completely and utterly wrong.

“It’s a fundamental point of democracy, you cannot hold Scotland in the Union against its will.

“You cannot just lock us in a cupboard and turn the key and hope that everything goes away.

“If the United Kingdom is to continue, it can only be by consent and if Boris Johnson is confident in the case for the Union he should be confident enough to make that case and allow people to decide.”

She continued: “Scotland cannot be imprisoned in the United Kingdom against its will.

“The more they try to block the will of the Scottish people the more utter contempt they show for Scottish democracy, the more they are going to increase support for Scottish independence which is in a sense them doing my job for me,”