Fife councillors have voted to try to block any attempt by the SNP Government to hold a second Scottish independence referendum.
The majority of the council chamber backed a Labour amendment on indyref2, which stated that the government “does not have a mandate to request a section 30 order for another referendum and that any such request should be refused”.
Labour’s amendment was carried after SNP councillors were outvoted by five votes.
It followed a motion by Conservative councillor Tony Miklinski, who is standing as a candidate for the North East Fife constituency in the General Election, seconded by his party colleague Kathleen Leslie, who is an election candidate for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.
He had called for the council to write to the government expressing the view that there should be no further independence referendum for at least a generation.
Mr Miklinski said: “While the SNP claims it’s all about Brexit, it’s about their refusal to accept that they lost the 2014 vote.”
During what was, at times, a lively exchange, the council’s SNP co-leader David Alexander made the case for another independence referendum.
“We know that Scottish resources have bankrolled Westminster for decades,” he said.
“We’ve got one twelfth of the population and a third of the resources.”
In proposing his amendment, Labour co-leader David Ross said: “We believe Scottish independence would be economically devastating and it would be the many not the few who would pay the price.”
