DENNIS CANAVAN : Independence isn't'dead & buried and SNP will still be a threat at next election

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- CHRIS MCCALL

LABOUR would be "very foolish" to write off the SNP following its landslide general election victory, a former MP has warned.

The Nationalists won in just nine constituencies on July 4, with Keir Starmer's party sweeping to power after claiming the most seats in Scotland for the first time since 2010.

It left the SNP strategy of using the general election as a "de facto referendum" on independence in tatters with activists now split on the way forward.

But Dennis Canavan, a former long-serving Labour MP, said it would be wrong to conclude that the campaign to end the Union was "dead and buried".

Speaking to the Record, the Scottish political veteran said that John Swinney's government still had time to "get its act together" before the next Holyrood election in 2026.

"Independence is not on the immediate agenda but it would be wrong to conclude that independence is dead and buried," he said.