Neil Gray told the Record the UK Government “should not stand in the way of the will of the people of Scotland”.<\/p>\n
18:58, 08 May 2026Updated 19:17, 08 May 2026<\/p>\n
Neil Gray says UK Government ‘must not stand in the way’ of Scottish independence referendum<\/p>\n
The SNP has a “significant mandate” for a second referendum on Scottish independence<\/a> even if it falls short of winning a majority, a senior party figure has suggested.<\/p>\n Neil Gray<\/a> told the Record the UK Government “should not stand in the way of the will of the people of Scotland”. Speaking moments after he was reelected as the MSP for Airdrie on Friday afternoon, the Health Secretary said: “Everyone knew what our campaign was about”.<\/p>\n John Swinney put a commitment to hold an IndyRef2<\/a> at the heart of his party’s 2026 manifesto – but has repeatedly said the SNP would have to replicate its achievement in 2011 of winning an outright majority of MSPs if the UK Government was to agree such a demand.<\/p>\n The SNP stands tonight on the brink of a sweeping victory and an unprecedented fifth term in power but could fall short of the 65 MSPs required for an overall majority.<\/p>\n Speaking to the Record, Gray said: “We are making gains that mean we will have an historic fifth term in Government – John Swinney will lead the largest party and will be the next First Minister of Scotland”.<\/p>\n Gray continued: “Regardless of a majority or not, there is a significant mandate for the SNP to govern and for its manifesto to be implemented. So the UK Government should not stand in the way of the will of the people of Scotland.”<\/p>\n READ MORE: John Swinney declares SNP victory in Scottish election but party could fall short of majority<\/a>READ MORE: SNP veteran Angus Robertson crashes out of Holyrood after Greens gain Edinburgh Central in historic result<\/a><\/p>\n Asked by the Record if that meant a commitment to hold a second referendum on independence, the SNP minister added: “Absolutely.<\/p>\n “It was front and centre of our campaign. Everybody knew what our campaign was about, on vision, values and the choice over our future, and no UK Government should stand in the way of the people of Scotland.”<\/p>\n Wes Streeting, the UK Health Secretary, previously said Westminster would refuse to allow a second referendum on Scottish independence even if the SNP wins a majority.<\/p>\n “The SNP would like to make this all about the constitution again to avoid their running on their domestic record,” Streeting said last month.<\/p>\n Asked how a second referendum could be secured at all he replied: “Well, they’re not having one.”<\/p>\n Streeting continued: “We\u2019ve had the financial crash, we had years of Tory austerity, we had the catastrophe of Brexit, we\u2019ve had the war in Ukraine, the war in Iran, the Covid pandemic. I think this country\u2019s had enough of chaos.<\/p>\n “And the SNP may well want to further this chaos, but I just say again to people in Scotland, look at the damage that Brexit did when the UK left the European Union. There is a much stronger and older single market here in the UK called the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n “If you think Brexit was bad, imagine what Scexit would do.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Neil Gray told the Record the UK Government “should not stand in the way of the will of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6286,13849,10593,3495,3952,10594,3497,2237,3934,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-31921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-holyrood-election","9":"tag-indyref-2","10":"tag-indyref2","11":"tag-john-swinney","12":"tag-neil-gray","13":"tag-scottish-independence","14":"tag-scottish-national-party","15":"tag-scottish-parliament-election","16":"tag-snp","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116541256003840588","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}