Jamie Hepburn has risked adding to confusion over the SNP’s new independence plan by defining the “settled will of the people” as support for Yes of around 60%.

However the Minister for Independence also said the SNP winning the general election would be a mandate for independence, something it previously did on 37%.

The comments come just days after Humza Yousaf’s speech to the SNP Independence Convention in Dundee led to confusion over thresholds. 

The SNP leader told Saturday’s gathering that if his party won the election it would be a mandate for independence - through Indyref2 or immediate negotiations with the UK.

He and his team later clarified that a win meant winning most of Scotland’s 57 seats.

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But the party’s longest serving MP, Pete Wishart, said the plan was actually a 'de facto' referendum in which a win was defined as winning more than half of all votes cast.

It was also unclear what was new about the plan, given the SNP won most seats in 2015, 2017 and 2019 and was rebuffed by London when it claimed a mandate for Indyref2.

The First Minister said the difference was that “page one, line one” of the party’s manifesto would say: “Vote SNP for Scotland to become an independent country”.

But unless the manifesto is one line long, it will also contain other plans and ideas that could muddy the waters and let Unionists claim the SNP’s votes were received for many reasons.

In his speech in Dundee, Mr Yousaf said he wanted his party to work to “ensure independence becomes the settled will of the Scottish people”.

On STV’s Scotland Tonight on Monday, Mr Hepburn was asked how winning most of the seats in a general election with 37% of the vote could be the settled will of the people.

READ MORE: Humza Yousaf appears to admit his day-old Indy plan won't work

He said: “Well, the election’s not been held yet, and I'm very confident we’ll garner many more votes than you've just laid out. I think we'll do rather well next year.”

Host Colin Mackay reminded Mr Hepburn that in 2017, the SNP won a majority of Scotland’s then 59 seats with 37% of the vote.

He told him: “Okay, you got 35 seats, but you only got 37% of the vote. That's nowhere near the settled will, is it?”

Mr Hepburn replied: “I’m confident we’ll do very well at next year’s election. 

“We’ll set out a manifesto with independence at its very heart and we will take that to the people, and I think we’ll secure their support.”

Mr Mackay said: “Tell me what the settled will looks like.”

Mr Hepburn said: “Well, the settled will ultimately will be determined through the ballot box.

“What we need to do, and I recognise this is incumbent on us, is to get out there, it’s to engage with people, it’s to make the case, to make the case persuasively, and to get them onto the side of supporting independence.”

Mr Mackay said: “But that doesn’t tell me what it looks like. Does it look like 60%, which is a figure we’ve talked about in the past?”

The minister replied: “Yeah, I think we need to try and demonstrate that we have secured that type of position. You know, there or thereabouts.”

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Mr Mackay said Scotland was “nowhere near that” and therefore the SNP was “nowhere near another referendum”.

Mr Hepburn said: “The next electoral contest is the next UK general election. 

“We’re going to stand in terms that every other party will. They’ll lay out our manifesto and they’ll look to win the most seats. That's what we're going to do and if we secure that, which I'm confident we will, we’ll look to take forward the agenda we’ve laid out in our manifesto.”

Scottish Tory chairman Craig Hoy said: "The truth is that Jamie Hepburn, like Humza Yousaf, is dangerously pursuing the de facto referendum of the Sturgeon era - even though he is shifting the goalposts on the supposed grounds for another referendum during the course of the same interview.

“The SNP should drop their relentless obsession with breaking up the UK and instead focus on the people’s real priorities – the cost-of-living crisis and NHS waiting times.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: "This so-called plan is dissolving into gibberish. No two nationalists seem to interpret it the same way.

"Today Jamie Hepburn seems to suggest that the nationalists would push ahead with their bid for independence even if a majority of Scots were against it. At least he's being honest - this has been the nationalist tactic ever since they lost in 2014.

"Even Scots who are undecided on the constitution can see that now is not the time for Scottish Government to be focusing on this topic while 1 in 7 are sat on NHS waiting lists and the cost-of-living soars."