The SNP’s longest-serving MP has said plans to turn the general election into a de facto referendum on independence are a “massive gamble”.
But party veteran Pete Wishart said the strategy may be the “only way” to resolve the constitutional question and possibly the “best last chance” of independence.
He also upped the ante by claiming that dissolving Holyrood would lead to voters installing Scots Tory leader Douglas Ross as First Minister.
Nicola Sturgeon has said the SNP will use the Westminster election as an independence vote after the Supreme Court closed the door on Holyrood staging a referendum.
A special SNP conference in the spring will hammer out the details, but it is expected the pro-independence parties will aim for winning a majority of votes and claim such a result as a mandate.
Senior figures believe the plan is fraught with risk and will not lead to an independent Scotland.
In a piece for the National, a conflicted Wishart wrote: “A de facto referendum is just about the worst possible way to settle the constitutional future of Scotland.
“Let me also put it another way. A de facto referendum is now the only way we’re going to be able to settle the constitutional future of Scotland.”
The Perth and North Perthshire MP wrote that “potential difficulties” include Westminster ignoring a positive result for the SNP as well as the “sheer challenge” of securing 50%-plus of the vote:
“If we fail to pull it off, we may surrender our leading position in Scotland and could possibly kill off any hope of independence being secured in a “real” generation. It is a massive gamble – with the emphasis on massive.”
However, he argued that a “move has to be made” and it is up to the SNP to “move the pieces and push this forward”.
He continued: “This then is the only way forward and for all its difficulties, challenges and drawbacks it is our only, and possibly best last chance.”
Wishart, first elected in 2001, also flat out rejected calls for the First Minister to force a Holyrood election and use a Scottish Parliament campaign as a de facto referendum:
“What can not happen is any attempt to “dissolve” the current Scottish Parliament and cause an early Scottish election. That would only lead to First Minister Douglas Ross.
“More importantly, the Scottish people would be likely to punish any government that simply walked away from its responsibilities of governing at a time when that it is so crucially required.
“The optics of this on the people we would need to win over would be simply awful.”
He concluded: “We won’t have a properly agreed referendum because the UK Government defiantly refuse to engage in even the broadest discussion about a referendum and simply ignore the will of our Parliament.
“In the face of this intransigence there are therefore only two options. One is to do this. The other is to simply give up, do nothing and continue with this constitutional deadlock.”
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