THE UK government “should not stand in the way” of a second Scottish independence referendum, Carwyn Jones has said.

The first minister was speaking in the Senedd on Tuesday, March 21, after his Scottish counterpart Nicola Sturgeon said she would call for a referendum on independence, the second in less than five years, in reaction to the vote for the UK to leave the European Union.

“If the Scottish Parliament votes to hold a referendum, the UK government should not stand in the way of the Scottish Parliament, any more than the European Commission or Parliament should have stood in the way of the UK holding a referendum on Brexit,” he said.

“I think it’s right that if the Scottish Parliament supports a referendum and looks for a particular date, that the views of the Scottish Parliament should be respected.”

Mr Jones was responding to leader of the Assembly’s Ukip group and former Conservative MP Neil Hamilton, who said Theresa May should “call Nicola Sturgeon’s bluff” and agree to hold a referendum.

Mr Hamilton said: “It’s rarely wrong to consult the people on a major issue of this kind.”

But, speaking after Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood last week called for “a national debate” on Welsh independence, Mr Jones said: “It is not my view that independence is in Wales’s interests.”

The first minister also warned against “creating the conditions where people feel annoyed enough to take the view that, actually, they don’t believe the UK is worth preserving.”