No Scotexit for now

The Guardian reports:

Nicola Sturgeon has abandoned her demands for a new independence referendum before the Brexit deal is signed, after her party lost a string of seats to pro-union parties in the general election.

Admitting she needed to “reset” her referendum strategy, the first minister told Holyrood she accepted there was no widespread support in Scotland for a second vote on independence before the UK leaves the EU.

Sturgeon said her priority now was to focus on getting the best Brexit deal possible, leaving the timescale for staging a new referendum deliberately vague. She implied she wanted to hold it before the next Holyrood election in 2021, adding that her party had a clear mandate to do so at some point.

This is a good thing. You need to see what happens with Brexit before Scotland can make a sensible decision on whether to stay in the UK.

If Scotland was not in the UK, then the 2017 election results would have been:

• Conservative 318 305
• Labour 262 255
• SNP 35 0
• Lib Dems 12 8
• DUP 10
• Sinn Fein 7
• Plaid Cymru 4
• Greens 1
• Total 650 591

A majority of 591 would be 296 so the Conservatives would be able to govern alone.