Nicola Sturgeon vows to confront Boris Johnson over Scottish independence as new SNP MPs assemble

First minister mocks PM over Friday call: 'I wasn’t sure how much he’d had a chance to catch up with the Scottish results'

Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon has assembled her newly-elected MPs for the first time in Dundee, and warned prime minister Boris Johnson he cannot expect to “bludgeon” Scotland into conforming to his world view.

The country’s first minister spoke with the PM by phone on Friday in the aftermath of his landslide general election victory, in which the SNP won 48 out of 59 Scottish seats.

The results drew a delighted reaction form Ms Sturgeon on results night - not least when it was announced that Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson was ousted in East Dunbartonshire.

Mr Johnson used Friday’s call to make clear that he “remained opposed” to a second independence referendum, according to Downing Street, after Ms Sturgeon used the result to argue he had “no right” to block an “IndyRef2”.

Speaking on Saturday at the port city’s V&A Museum (a pointed choice given the venue’s recent use in the barbed HBO satire Succession), she insisted the Tories could not simply keep saying no to calls for a fresh vote following on from the events of September 2014, when the “No” camp opposed to breaking away from the United Kingdom won the day with a 55.5 per cent majority.

Of her phone call with the prime minister, Ms Sturgeon added: “I wasn’t sure how much he’d had a chance to catch up with the Scottish results.

“I pointed out to him, politely of course after I congratulated him, that the Scottish Tories, having fought the election on the single issue of opposition to an independence referendum, had lost – lost vote share, lost more than half of their seats.

“It was a watershed election on Thursday and it’s very clear that Scotland wants a different future to the one chosen by much of the rest of the UK.

“Scotland showed its opposition to Boris Johnson and the Tories, said no again to Brexit, and made very clear that we want the future of Scotland, whatever that turns out to be, to be decided by people who live here.

“You can’t bludgeon a nation into accepting your view of the world when it is made very clear that it doesn’t have that view of the world.

Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon celebrates as she joins the SNP’s newly elected MPs for a group photo call outside the V&A Museum in Dundee (Andrew Milligan/PA)

“It couldn’t really be any clearer from the results of this election that Scotland doesn’t want a Boris Johnson government, it doesn’t want to leave the European Union and it wants to be able to determine its own future, whatever that future turns out to be.”

Ms Sturgeon said the UK should only continue to exist by consent.

“This idea that the Tories can just say no and sort of imprison Scotland in a union against its will, I just don’t think will hold,” said the first minister.

“The union can only continue to exist by consent if the Scottish people want it to.

“And you have to be prepared to allow the Scottish people to choose if you want to make the argument that it should be part of the union.

“So if Boris Johnson has confidence in the case for the union and the UK, and for Scotland staying part of that, he should have the guts to make that case and let people decide because he won’t get away with just saying no and trying to bludgeon the nation of Scotland into seeing the world as he does, which most of us don’t.”

Ms Sturgeon added: “There is no doubt that the prospect of a Boris Johnson government for the next five years is worrying for people.

“It’s a grim reality and in my view, it makes that case for Scotland being able to choose something different all the more urgent and all the more important.”

Following a wretched night for the Labour Party in the election, Ms Sturgeon said: “I think Labour have got some deep soul searching to do before anybody knows the direction they’re going to take.

“That’s certainly true in Scotland, but it’s been true in Scotland for a long time.

“I don’t know where Labour in Scotland goes from here, but Labour UK-wide have got some big questions to answer about their own direction before I think people like me can begin to work out how we might potentially work with them or not in the future.”

Additional reporting by PA