Rishi Sunak pledged to forge a “constructive partnership” with Nicola Sturgeon as he brushed off renewed SNP demands for a second independence referendum.
The prime minister was pushed on the prospect of another constitutional vote during his first appearance in the House of Commons as the new head of the UK government.
Amid noisy heckling from Conservative MPs, Alyn Smith, the SNP’s international affairs spokesman at Westminster, said that “Scotland’s best future is independence in Europe”.
He pointed to a Panelbase poll from August which found that 72 per cent of people in Scotland said they would now vote Remain. That compares to 62 per cent who voted to stay part of the European Union in 2016.
Smith asked Sunak: “How long does he