Willie Rennie tells SNP: "Independence Referendum must be off the table"

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie has called on Nicola Sturgeon to take a second independence referendum during the course of the next five years “off the table” if she wants support from his party.

The SNP leader, who finished two seats short of another majority, said she will lead a minority government at Holyrood, ruling out a formal coalition.

Ms Sturgeon will need support from another party to be re-elected as First Minister and to pass legislation through the Scottish Parliament.

The Lib Dems will work with the SNP where possible, Mr Rennie said, but he roundly rejected any suggestion of co-operating over a second vote on independence.

His party were heartened by a stronger showing than many expected in the Scottish elections - securing four constituency seats, including Mr Rennie's own target of Fife North East, and one list seat.

Mr Rennie said: “I think the SNP needs to have a change of attitude.

“They increasingly got arrogant in the last parliament and that expressed itself in just rejecting proposals from other parties without much consideration.

“In the last budget round talks they never even bothered to invite us in where in previous years they had made the effort.

“We will work where we can with them, we'll hunt out agreement, but we're not interested in coalitions. That's off the table.

“What is also off the table is any idea of another independence referendum.

“They have got to make a clear and unambiguous statement that another referendum must be off the table for the next five years in order to respect the referendum result and this result, but also making sure that they're not going down an anti-democratic route which people in that debate on Sunday clearly felt very strongly about.”

Speaking alongside UK Lib Dem leader Tim Farron and new Edinburgh Western MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton in the Scottish capital, he added that to “get over the starting line”, Ms Sturgeon's party - which won 63 of 129 seats - would need to make compromises to ensure any kind of cross-party partnership works.

As a result of the slender balance of power, Mr Rennie said he felt the Lib Dems were “as powerful as everybody else”.

The party had faced a torrid time at the polls in the period after they entered coalition government in 2010.

They were reduced to two constituency and three list seats in 2011, and lost all but one MP in the Westminster elections last year.

“We've turned the corner, nobody predicted that we would win constituency seats,” Mr Rennie said.

“The nature of this election is different and it's moving in the right direction. People were saying the Lib Dems were finished and that's far from the truth. We outperformed in this election.

“In a parliament where there is no majority we are as powerful as everybody else, we can exert our influence and because we're better at it than everybody else we will perform in this parliament.''

Champagne was sprayed and campaign staff thanked by Mr Rennie and his colleagues at Mr Cole-Hamilton's Corstorphine HQ.

He also questioned the suitability of the Conservative Party to serve as Holyrood's main opposition, pointing to similarities between the politics of Ruth Davidson's party and the SNP.

He said: “There's big responsibility on the Conservatives now, they wanted this opposition thing but as far as I can see they agree with the SNP on an awful lot, so I'm not how much of an opposition they're going to be.

“They've talked a good game, let's see if they can deliver it.”

• Electionlive