Regarding mandate: Would that be the manifesto statement that is buried way down in their long-form manifesto, and not mentioned in the main manifesto; or would that be the multiple statements from Sturgeon that a vote for the SNP would not be a vote for a second independence referendum; or would that be where Sturgeon said that she would not call a referendum if there was not a majority of the people for independence? It's difficult to keep up with all this legitimacy ;-)
You might believe it's opportunistic and that's a separate argument with its own merits, but surely you can't believe nobody saw this coming. Because you have, to be fair, missed out the bit where she said "or a material change in circumstances" over, and over, and over again whilst on the Holyrood campaign trail - and it was widely understood that she meant Brexit at the time.
There simply is not an SNP or Green voter in this country who did not know that today's vote would take place in the event of Brexit and that their respective candidate would vote for it. It's not credible to claim otherwise. Therefore the mandate exists, as per the rules of parliamentary democracy.
We believe that the Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold another referendum if there
is clear and sustained evidence that independence has become the preferred option of a majority of the Scottish people – or if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will.
Quite aside from that, the obviously stated public policy of the SNP and the Greens is that Scottish independence is their preferred constitutional settlement. It's hard to imagine that one would vote SNP while being unaware that this was a possibility, and it's hard to imagine a more obvious and legitimate political move.
