LEADING Labour figures in Scotland have openly questioned the party's opposition to a second independence referendum in light of Thursday’s SNP landslide.
After Scottish Labour was again reduced to a single MP at Westminster, Monica Lennon MSP insisted: “The future of Scotland must be decided by the Scottish people.”
Ged Killen, one the party’s six Commons casualties, who lost the Rutherglen and Hamilton West seat to the SNP, tweeted: "I campaigned on a promise to vote against indyref2 but I lost. The SNP made massive gains on a promise to hold another referendum and, as democrats, we must accept it even if we don't like it."
His Labour colleague Neil Findlay, the Lothian MSP, said: “We cannot deny the people of Scotland a second referendum where the majority is calling for it.”
Ian Blackford, the SNP’s leader in the Commons, welcomed the recognition from senior Labour figures that the Scottish Government had a “cast-iron mandate” for a second vote.
“While we will not all agree on independence, we can surely find common ground that this decision must be in Scotland’s hands not Boris Johnson's.”
The development came as a showdown loomed at Westminster between Jeremy Corbyn and Labour’s depleted ranks of MPs at a parliamentary party meeting scheduled for Tuesday evening.
John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor, said he took full responsibility for the “catastrophic” result, which saw his party slump to its worst defeat since 1935.
“I own this disaster. If anyone's to blame, it's me; full stop,” he declared.
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