Nicola Sturgeon believes that Jeremy Corbyn would be prepared to do a deal with the SNP if the forthcoming general election ends in a hung parliament.
The First Minister was on the campaign trail at The Quay in Dundee’s City Quay on Wednesday afternoon.
Ms Sturgeon is calling for a second Scottish independence referendum after the nation voted to stay in the United Kingdom in 2014.
Mr Corbyn, the Labour leader, is against an IndyRef2 but Ms Sturgeon believes that he would work with the SNP if he is able to form a government on December 13 having not secured a parliamentary majority.
The SNP currently has 35 seats at Westminster, and a strong performance in the upcoming election could see the party become kingmakers in the event of a hung parliament.
This would open the door to a second vote as part of an agreement between the two parties.
Ms Sturgeon told the event in Dundee: “I do believe if the parliamentary arithmetic enables this, then Jeremy Corbyn is not going to turn his back on an opportunity for a UK Labour government, just because he’s determined to block the right of the Scottish people to choose their own future.
“It would take a lot of explaining from him if he was to say ‘no, no, I’m going to walk away from this opportunity. Why am I going to do that? Because I want to veto Scotland’s right to self-determination’.
“This is a man who favours self-determination for virtually every other country on the face of the planet.
“It would be a bit odd if he was to give up his chance at government.”
Ms Sturgeon also denied that a vote for Scottish independence would unleash the same chaos that has afflicted British politics since the Brexit refendum of June 2016.
She told Wave FM: “The contrast between the 2014 referendum and the Brexit referendum couldn’t be starker.
“In the Brexit vote there was no information, no detail, no planning, no honesty. In the independence referendum there was a detailed prospectus, there was lots and lots of planning. We had been up front about the trade-offs and compromises.
“Brexit is a wrong-headed policy but the mess it has become and wrangling and chaos was never inevitable. It was down to dishonesty and bad planning.
The event attracted a big media presence and a large number of SNP supporters, who shared selfies with Ms Sturgeon after her speech.
