Scotland's first minister, John Swinney, said on Sunday he would call for ⁠another independence referendum if his SNP won a majority in May's Scottish parliament ​elections, a result he ‍added could end Keir Starmer's premiership.

Swinney, leader of the pro-independence Scottish National Party which ‌has governed Scotland for nearly ‍19 years, appealed to independence-minded voters to hand his party a big majority in May, when Wales will also vote in Welsh parliament elections and some voters in the U.K. will take part in local polls.

In a referendum in 2014, Scots rejected ending the more than 300-year-old union with the U.K. by 55% to 45%, but nationalists argue ⁠that the vote for Brexit two years later, which the majority of Scottish voters opposed, changed everything.

Asked by Sky News whether winning a majority in May would be a green light to demanding another independence referendum, Swinney said: "Yes ... I am being straightforward ... if people in Scotland ‌want Scotland to become independent the SNP has got to do really well in this forthcoming election."

Britain's top ​court has ruled that the Scottish government cannot hold ‍a second referendum on independence without approval from the British parliament, but Swinney ‍said ​he believed Starmer ‍would not be prime minister ⁠by the end of ‍the year.

"The United Kingdom is allegedly a partnership of equals, so Scotland has a democratic right to decide our own future and secondly if I win ⁠a majority ... ‌I don't think Keir Starmer will be the prime minister."