SNP backs Swinney’s ‘clear’ strategy for new independence referendum

First Minister John Swinney told the 91st SNP conference the party is ‘within touching distance of the 65 seats that will make the world sit up and take notice’. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

SNP members have overwhelmingly backed leader John Swinney’s “clear and unambiguous” independence strategy that a majority election win is the only route to another referendum.

On the first day of the party’s annual conference in Aberdeen, the vast majority of members backed the leadership’s motion that next May’s Holyrood elections should be fought on a “clear platform of national independence” and that winning a majority in the Scottish parliament – by securing 65 seats or more – would be “the only uncontested way to deliver a new vote on Scotland’s future”.