THE NEW Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson has claimed a second referendum on Scottish independence would cause chaos.
The East Dunbartonshire MP made the claim while calling for a second referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU.
Speaking to the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland, Swinson said: “I do not believe in Scottish independence, I believe our best future is within the United Kingdom, for many of the same reasons why I believe the UK is best off within the European Union.
“We had a very strong result in 2014 against a specific independence proposal, because to the SNP’s credit they did set out a white paper of how they envisioned independence looking, and that was comprehensively rejected by the Scottish people in 2014.
“The other difference is that a People’s Vote on Brexit is a way out of a current mess, a crisis, chaos in our politics which is stopping us from moving on and addressing the real issues that our country faces.There is actually a way out of chaos.
“If you were to have an independence referendum in Scotland that is layering chaos on top of that already volatile and difficult situation.”
When asked what she would say to SNP supporters who would point out that independence would be another way out of chaos for Scotland, Swinson replied: “I understand that the people who genuinely hold that view, I would gently say we’ve seen how difficult breaking up is to do.
“This is what it looks like trying to unpick a union of 40 years and how difficult that is, trying to wrench Scotland out of the UK from a 300 year union would be so much more difficult.”
Independence, she added “would be absolutely hugely disruptive for our economy, for our public services, and so much energy would have to be spent on that instead of addressing the big issues that we face”.
Swinson also said the SNP had no mandate for indyref2: “The SNP have put forward this idea of indyref2 at subsequent elections and they have lost seats and they have lost votes. I am confident that is not what people in Scotland want.
“People in Scotland want to have Scotland in the UK and the UK in the EU and that is what the Liberal Democrats are arguing for.
“That’s what as leader of the Liberal Democrats I am going to do everything in my power to deliver.”
The SNP’s Peter Wishart tweeted: “Jo Swinson joins the Tories in ‘forbidding’ a second indy referendum even if it became a clear majority. How could people who call themselves ‘Liberals’ get to this point?”
Swinson, who was a minister in the coalition government, replaced Vince Cable as leader of the Lib Dems on Monday.
Yesterday, in a round of media interviews to mark her new role she ruled out working with Jeremy Corbyn even in the event of a hung parliament: “There are plenty of people in the Labour party that I can work with, that I do work with. But Jeremy Corbyn is a Brexiteer.
“He cannot be trusted on Brexit. That is abundantly clear.”
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