Election 2019: Sturgeon gathers SNP MPs after victory

Nicola Sturgeon has welcomed the SNP's new raft of MPs in Dundee following their "watershed" general election win.

The party won 48 of Scotland's 59 constituencies in Thursday's poll.

Ms Sturgeon was joined by a large number of her new Westminster contingent for a photo call at the city's V&A museum.

She said the result showed that the majority of people in Scotland "want a very different future" to the rest of the UK.

In a phone call on Friday, the first minister told Boris Johnson she would publish a paper next week outlining the case for another vote on Scottish independence.

The prime minister said he was opposed to a referendum, despite the SNP's general election success.

Speaking in Dundee, Ms Sturgeon said the Scottish electorate had rejected Mr Johnson, the Conservative party and Brexit.

They had sent a clear signal that they wanted the future of Scotland to be "in the hands of people who live here", she added.

"The Tories - although they will rage against that reality, no doubt, for as long as they can - have to accept and understand it," she said.

"They were rejected in Scotland. They put the issue of opposition to an independence referendum... on the ballot paper and they lost vote share, they lost more than 50% of their seats - it was a catastrophic defeat for the Tories on that single issue."

She said the UK government "can't ultimately block the will of the Scottish people", adding that the "mandate and momentum" is on the side of another referendum.

Ms Sturgeon's party secured 45% of the vote in this election - 8.1% more than in the last in 2017, when it won 35 seats.

It was their second best result after 2015 - when they took 56 seats. Ms Sturgeon said Friday's result exceeded her expectations.

Across the UK, the Conservatives secured their biggest majority since the 1980s in what Boris Johnson described as a "historic" election victory.

On Friday he told Ms Sturgeon he opposed a second referendum, they he was committed to the union and the result of the 2014 referendum should be respected.

Scottish Labour will return only one MP to Westminster - Edinburgh South's Ian Murray - after losing six seats in Scotland.

Its governing body met on Saturday to discuss how to move on from the election defeat.

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard lamented his party's "devastating" result, putting the defeat down to constitutional issues rather than shifting blame on to Jeremy Corbyn.

Willie Rennie, the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, is also expected to gather his MPs for the first time since the vote.

The party maintained four seats in Scotland, despite the high-profile loss of UK leader Jo Swinson.

She lost out by 149 votes in East Dunbartonshire, in what was seen as a major scalp for the SNP.

However, the Lib Dems won in the UK's most marginal constituency, North East Fife, with Wendy Chamberlain beating the SNP's Stephen Gethins, who previously won with the UK's smallest majority - just two votes.

The Scottish Conservatives lost more than half the seats they had held north of the border. They now have six MPs, in the south and the north-east of the country.

For a nationwide breakdown of results, see our results page, which will be updated throughout the night.

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