NICOLA Sturgeon has vowed to hold another independence referendum if Boris Johnson refuses to agree to a new vote.

The SNP leader underlined her position that if the Prime Minister fails to consent to a second referendum she would press on with plans to hold a new vote using Holyrood legislation.

Speaking last night in a television interview, she said to stop the second referendum the Prime Minister would have to make a legal challenge to it in the Supreme Court.

"We would proceed with the legislation that is necessary and that is only happen if it was passed by the Scottish Parliament and then if he wanted to stop that it would be the case that he would have to go to the Supreme Court to challenge it and that would be his decision not mine," she told ITN.

READ MORE: SNP on course for fourth Holyrood term but look set to be short of majority

"The absurdity of a position where a Prime Minister was going to court, not to overturn the SNP, but to overturn the democratic position of the Scottish people. I don't think we will get to that position. But of course I said during the campaign and I meant it that my first priority when I'm back, as I hope I will be in the First Minister's office at the start of the week, is to get on with the decisions to take us through the crisis."

In an interview today Johnson has again made it clear he would reject a request for a second independence referendum.

The Prime Minister told The Telegraph that he regarded a new vote as "irresponsible".

READ MORE: Tactical voting helped UK parties hold key SNP target seats

Counting in the Holyrood election continues today with the SNP taking two seats from the Tories and Labour so far, but failing in a bid to take several other key target constituencies after unionist tactical voters swung behind the incumbent reducing the chances of a SNP majority.

The party comfortably gained Edinburgh Central, the seat of the former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson, and two traditionally Labour and Conservative constituencies.

But Jackie Baillie, deputy leader of Scottish Labour, and Jackson Carlaw, the former Scottish Conservative leader, both increased their majorities in Dumbarton and Eastwood despite earlier reports they were on a knife edge.

Labour also held Edinburgh Southern while the Liberal Democrats retained Edinburgh Western and North East Fife with vastly increased majorities, with the Tory vote collapsing in all three.

The polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice, of Strathclyde University, said that there was only a “very, very narrow” pathway to an SNP majority administration with Galloway and Aberdeenshire West, both Tory-held targets that will declare their results today.

READ MORE: LIVE: All the news from the Scottish Parliament election as seats are declared

Curtice said that based on what had been confirmed those gains were “less than likely” for the SNP.

He told the BBC: “Then they might just pick up a list seat in the Highlands and Islands and if all of that happened that might still take them to 65, but I think . . . the most probable outcome is indeed the SNP is going to be two or three seats short, and therefore we are looking at an SNP/Green majority for a referendum.”

Sturgeon was comfortably re-elected in Glasgow Southside, where she saw off the challenge of Anas Sarwar, despite the new Scottish Labour leader increasing his party’s share of the vote.

In her acceptance speech she said that she would “offer this country the choice of a better future” in a reference to another referendum.

She also attacked “far-right thugs” who targeted the constituency and singled out Jayda Fransen, the right-wing independent candidate who confronted her at the polling station on Thursday and accused her of “flooding” the country with immigrants. Fransen attracted only 46 votes in Southside.

Sturgeon played down the likelihood of an overall SNP majority at Holyrood and said it had “always been a very, very long shot” but that lack of overall control would not stop the push for another referendum.

With turnout up by more than 10% in some areas, putting Scotland on course for a record turnout for a Holyrood election, the SNP was victorious in early battles with fine margins.

The party claimed East Lothian, which has been Labour held since the parliament convened, with a majority of 1179. It then won Ayr, which John Scott had held for the Conservatives since a by-election in 2000, by only 170 votes and held off a strong Tory showing in Banffshire and Buchan Coast to secure a majority of 772 despite a more than 10 point swing to the Tories.

More key constituencies will be declared today and the results of the regional vote. Alex Salmond’s Alba Party is only standing on the regional list but early returns suggest that it will struggle to have any MSPs elected.