Angus Robertson admits new case must be made for independence

A new case for independence must be made before Yes campaigners can hope to win another referendum, according to the SNPs ex-deputy leader Angus Robertson.

But the former MP insisted a second vote will happen as he unveiled plans to launch a polling organisation to help prepare the case.

The cautious note was sounded by Mr Robertson just weeks before Nicola Sturgeon prepares to set out her revised timetable for a second vote on Scotland leaving the United Kingdom.

Scots voted to stay part of the UK by 55 per cent to 45 per cent in 2014 and support for independence has since remained broadly at this level.

Mr Robertson has set up Progress Scotland, with polling and research conducted by Mark Diffley, who was the lead pollster for the UK Government in the run-up to the independence referendum.

“It can’t be the same case that was run in the last referendum, given everything that’s changed,” Mr Robertson told the BBC’s Politics Scotland yesterday. “We need greater clarity on where we’re going before we could ask the question, but we also need to do the very basic work of understanding where’s the public in all of this.”

He warned that a Yes vote won’t be delivered “just because one speaks a bit louder or knocks at the front door a bit louder.

“If we’re going to run a proper campaign which is properly informed, which is based on an understanding of where the public is – not just rerunning what happened before – but actually winning and winning big, we need to know how we can convince people about the economic case that gives them confidence, we need to explain what our relationship with Europe is going to be like, we need to explain on the currency question the answers to the questions that people have. We need to do all of that groundwork.”

Pamela Nash, head of Scotland in Union, said: “What Angus Robertson will find very quickly is that the majority of voters don’t want another divisive independence referendum.”

The UK Government, which has control over the constitution, has already rejected a demand from Ms Sturgeon for a Section 30 order to give Holyrood the authority to hold a second referendum after Brexit.

Mr Roberston added: “I think there will be another referendum. The current Scottish Government has a mandate to hold such a thing so I do think it will come. But we have to have our ducks in a row whenever that happens.”