The leader of Scotland’s trade union movement has urged Labour to support Nicola Sturgeon’s calls for a second independence referendum.
Grahame Smith, general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC), said the Scottish National party’s landslide victory in the general election made it clear that voters wanted a referendum.
Smith, who will retire this spring after 14 years in the post, said the election result presented Labour with a dilemma but also an opportunity.
Writing in the magazine Scottish Left Review, he said: “The first minister has made it clear that she will now push for indyref2. This has left Labour in a quandary: it cannot hold, as it has, that the overall election result gives the Tories a Brexit mandate, and simultaneously maintain the result in Scotland cannot be viewed as a mandate for indyref2.
“The democratic wishes of the people of Scotland need to be acknowledged. The Scottish Labour movement should support indyref2.”
Labour should use that as a chance to make a “compelling offer” to voters on how Scotland should pool or share its economic sovereignty.
His remarks add to the pressure on Richard Leonard, the Scottish Labour leader, to shift ground on the referendum. Leonard promised a review after Labour was left with just one Scottish Westminster seat after winning its lowest general election vote share in Scotland in the modern era, at 18.6%.
Leonard was forced last summer into accepting that the party could support a fresh referendum after John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, unexpectedly announced that policy. Leonard persuaded McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn to reject Sturgeon’s call for a vote to be held this year.
Smith’s remarks were welcomed by the SNP’s deputy leader, Keith Brown. “He is entirely right to say that the democratic wishes of the people of Scotland should be respected,” Brown said. “No politician or political party should stand in the way of people having that right to choose.”
Sturgeon has called for a second independence vote this year but Boris Johnson, the prime minister, has repeatedly ruled out granting Holyrood the powers to stage one. While the SNP won 48 of Scotland’s 59 Westminster seats, anti-independence parties won 54% of the vote share and support for independence remains below 50%.
Kenny Macaskill, a new SNP MP who was previously the Scottish justice secretary, wrote in the same edition of Scottish Left Review that the chances of a second referendum this year were “nil”.
Jenny Marra, a senior centrist Labour MSP, said she was not surprised by Smith’s stance given the STUC’s close relationship with the Scottish government, which heavily funds it. “Well knock me over with a feather,” Marra said on Twitter. “Nobody watching [the STUC] over past few years can be surprised by this.”
