The National:

LOGIC has never been the strong point of some Unionists. From telling Scotland that staying in the UK is the “only way to guarantee EU membership” to telling us that there is no mandate for a second Scottish independence referendum.

Now they are at it again, desperately trying to formulate any argument which will “prove” that last week’s European Parliament election was not a win for the SNP.

The latest attempt involves maths – and you can’t argue with maths, right? – to show us all that barely anyone in Scotland backs a second independence referendum.

The argument goes: there are 4,105,800 eligible voters in Scotland – which includes all those EU citizens who were denied their democratic right vote – and, on a turnout of 38.2%, this means that 1,568,242 people voted in Scotland last Thursday.

READ MORE: Scandal as EU citizens are refused right to vote in European Election

READ MORE: Ruth Davidson attempts to spin crushing defeat for Scottish Tories

READ MORE: Anger at BBC over European election coverage of Scotland

Of those, 611,614 cast their ballot in favour of the SNP.

The conclusion these desperate Unionists then reach is that 14.9% of Scotland backed the SNP and, by extension, a second independence referendum.

We’re not sure where to begin with this, so let’s get the obvious one out the way...

The National:

Now, for the avoidance of doubt, the yellow bits on the map of Scotland denote the council areas in which the SNP took the most votes.

The Tories are represented by all the dark blue bits you can’t see anywhere on the Scottish map – or England and Wales, for that matter.

We are also aware that the terms “win” and victory” can be interpreted, stretched and moulded by political leaders to fit their agenda – hence why you often have multiple sides claiming they have won.

But we seriously can’t see any way in which this can’t be interpreted as a win for the SNP.

The number of seats gained and share of the vote are two metrics often used.

The SNP took three of the six Scottish MEP seats, more than any other party, and took 37.8% of the vote in Scotland, more than any other party.

They also secured a higher share of the vote in 30 of the 32 council areas.

For context, the Brexit Party came in second with 14.8%, followed by the Scottish LibDems (remember them?) on 13.9%, the Scottish Tories on 11.6% and Scottish Labour on 9.3%.

These results are based on an increased turnout of 39.9%, up from 33.5% in 2014.

So the SNP’s share of the Scottish vote was up on a higher turnout, and their share of the UK vote was up on a higher turnout.

We’re not claiming it was a groundbreaking result that caused political earthquakes, but it is an SNP victory nonetheless.

Even if we were to accept this deluded logic, then what does that say about the Scottish Tory result? Or the UK Tory result? Or the Tory result at the last General Election?

Exactly what you’d expect.

*clears throat*

So, there are 4,105,800 eligible voters in Scotland and, on a turnout of 38.2%, this means that 1,568,242 people voted in Scotland last Thursday.

Of those, 182,476 cast their ballot in favour of the Scottish Tories, which works out as 4.4% of the vote.

Which means that a measly 4.4%% back the Scottish Tories and their call to rule out a second referendum.

That’s some mandate to block a second independence referendum...

And what if we apply this to the UK result as a whole?

There are roughly 46.9 million eligible voters in the UK and on a turnout of 50.9%, this means that the 1,512,147 who backed the Tories – who, let’s remember, finished in FIFTH place – amounts to just 3.22% backing the party currently running the UK.

It doesn’t look much better when we assess at the result of the last General Election, in which the Tories won the backing of fewer than 30% of the electorate.

Which means that well under a third of UK voters don’t back Tory austerity, they don’t back tax cuts for the rich, and they don't back a Tory Brexit.