Senior SNP MP admits losing a second referendum would mean the chance of independence would be gone

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“That is the risk,” declared Mr Wishart. “For me, the important thing is winning and you win when you feel you are in the best situation to enter the ring and deliver that knockout blow. You don’t go in when you are at 35% in the opinion polls and looking certain to be defeated.

“Because of my studies of Canada and what’s happened there, there’s a high risk if a second independence referendum is lost, that is a once-in-a-generation[event] because it will be so hard to get the forces back together. There will be a huge depression that will settle on the whole movement and it will be hard to get that energy back again.

“We will have lost the political momentum that has taken 30 to 40 years to build,” he explained.

In an exclusive interview for The Herald, the MP for Perth and North Perthshire, who chairs the Commons Scottish Affairs Committee, also said:

*there was a “good to reasonable chance” Boris Johnson would, after all, agree to another referendum in 2023 along the lines of the 2014 Edinburgh Agreement because a refusal to do so would simply increase support for independence in Scotland;

*denying Holyrood’s mandate for Indyref2 or trying to put Scotland in a “legal cage” over constitutional arguments would not work as the issue of the Tory administration governing Scotland “without democratic legitimacy” was “never going to go away”;

*the Tory suggestion that Indyref2 should be denied because of Nicola Sturgeon’s “rhetorical flourish” – that the 2014 referendum was a once-in-a-generation event – was “abundantly absurd” and

*Mr Salmond was now a “massive hindrance” to the independence cause and the Alba party was an “absolute menace” to the Yes campaign, being made up of the “worst kind of social conservatives”.

Sitting in Westminster’s airy, modern annexe of Portcullis House, Mr Wishart is on the verge of a landmark event. In two weeks’ time, he marks 20 years as an MP; he officially becomes a parliamentary veteran.

Yet he bristled at the suggestion he had become part of the Westminster Establishment given he is on the House of Commons Commission, that manages the parliamentary estate, and in 2019 threw his hat in the ring to become John Bercow’s successor as Commons Speaker.

“People did suggest I might wear a full-bottomed wig but my candidacy was just a very humorous attempt to use it as a means of drawing attention to a few issues,” the former Runrig musician explained.

“I never thought for a minute I would end up spending 20 years in this place. I thought one or two terms and I would go back and do something much more interesting and exciting in the world of music. Am I part of the Westminster Establishment? Absolutely and utterly not.”

Mr Wishart has now been chairman of the Scottish Affairs Committee for six years and is currently overseeing seven inquiries, covering such diverse topics as welfare, Covid and the Union.

With Conservatives having the largest number of committee members due to their election victory, the Perth MP said he had to be careful about chairing it. “I pride myself on the fact we are able to have reports agreed almost unanimously.”

He claimed his Labour predecessor, Ian Davidson, “used the committee as a sort of extra arm of the Better Together campaign; some of the reports he produced were just outrageous”.

However, Mr Wishart has been accused by his opponents of similar tactics in furtherance of the independence cause.

Last week, he got caught up in a stooshie with Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, who accused him of “poor and inept” chairmanship after he quizzed Alister Jack, the Scottish Secretary, over Indyref2.

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“All I did was ask what most of Scotland wanted me to ask. I’ll leave Douglas to answer for himself about how he behaved in the committee and whether he thought it was appropriate.”

As the pandemic recedes and the constitutional drumbeat gets louder, Mr Wishart accepted it was a “reasonable assessment” to suggest 2022 would be the year when battle proper would be joined on Indyref2.

At present, he claimed the Tory leadership in London was acting “like a bunch of headless chickens,” setting its face against Indyref2 but there were “some clearer and more informed voices” within Conservative ranks, who knew the constitutional issue had to be dealt with or else they would drive “demand for Scottish independence sky-high”.

“The Tories have to start thinking of how they will win this. It’s something that is not going to go away. At some point, they are going to have to deal with this.”

Mr Wishart accepted Mr Johnson, by dint of the Tories’ 2019 manifesto and subsequent General Election victory, had a “UK mandate” to refuse to facilitate Indyref2 but explained: “This is about legitimacy and democratic principles. He didn’t get a majority in Scotland and lost half his MPs in 2019. We’ve also had another electoral event with the Scottish elections since then[with] a clear democratic mandate for a Scottish independence referendum that’s backed by democratic force and legitimacy.

“These are the things Conservatives have to wrestle with just now. At some point, they are going to have to decide they are going to have to engage to resolve this or it just gets worse and worse for them.”

Mr Wishart, who shadows Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg for the SNP, suggested Mr Johnson would legally challenge the promised attempt by the Scottish Government to hold its own referendum and the matter would probably end up in the UK Supreme Court.

But if the PM won, as many believe, what then? “It becomes messy, unprecedented and will lead to a constitutional, democratic crisis this country has never had before. Why on earth would you want to get into territory like that, when there is a simple way to resolve this?”

Yet while the pro-independence forces saw a string of opinion polls give them the lead, of the last 15 snapshots only one has put the Yes campaign ahead. Has the SNP peaked?

The Nationalist grandee suggested the Salmond trial had had a negative impact on SNP support but as the memory of that controversy receded he had “absolutely no doubt whatsoever we will start to see support for Scottish independence continuing to rise over the next few months”.

While he exuded confidence Scots would opt for a future Scotland outwith the UK, Mr Wishart also warned of the consequences of a second referendum defeat.

“If we lost again, we would be into some really tricky territory for us as a party,” admitted the 59-year-old politician.

“What we observed after the second Canadian referendum[in 1995], which was lost by less than one per cent, is that any desire for another one collapsed in the Parti Quebecois and the forces of independence have now completely gone.”

He noted how, unlike in Scotland, the independence enthusiasts were of the older generation.

“The curious thing about Canada, I found out when I was there just before lockdown kicked in, is the Parti Quebecois and the parties of independence in Canada are inhabited by people of my generation, who hark back to the referendum days. Young people are fed up with it and support a united Canada. It’s so different from Scotland.

“After they lost the second referendum, the young people in Canada felt it wasn’t something they could invest in and it was an idea whose time had been and gone.”

Asked if that could that happen in Scotland if Indyref2 was mistimed and resulted in another defeat for the Yes campaign, Mr Wishart paused and replied: “I fear that.

“This is why I am one of those people who believe we only have an independence referendum when there is a very, very good chance we will win it because I sense if we lose another independence referendum the opportunity to become an independent nation will be more or less lost; not because people wouldn’t have the right to bring forward their enthusiasm but they will just think – that’s it.”