DAVID Mundell has admitted that a “chaotic Brexit” could help make the case for independence.
Speaking to ITV Border, the Tory Secretary of State was probed about the recent poll for Best For Britain which suggested 52% of Scots would vote for independence after Brexit, Mundell replied: "I think we always have to be alive to the fact that it is the driving purpose of the SNP to take forward an independence argument and they're going to look to do that in any circumstances.”
He added: “A chaotic Brexit, in my view, might assist them to do that and therefore we should not aspire to achieve that for a whole host of other reasons, economic reasons - but chaos and turbulence is exactly the sort of environment in which the nationalists would see that they could take advantage of."
It came after the Tory minister refused to admit to a Holyrood committee that the the Prime Minister's Chequers plan for Brexit was a "dead duck".
He told MSPs that Theresa May's Chequers deal was "still live and still on the table".
That’s despite EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier telling MPs the plan was “mort”.
SNP MSP Willie Coffey asked the minister "Mr Mundell, are you seriously asking us to believe that the Chequers proposal isn't a dead duck - you can't get it past your own party."
The MSP repeatedly urged Mundell to unequivocally rule out supporting a no-deal Brexit, which the Scottish Secretary did not answer directly.
Mundell said he would back the Chequer's plan against a no-deal Brexit and urged Labour, the SNP and the Greens to follow suit.
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