The tex lot of the address can also be found here.

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From Shetland in the north, all the way to Stranraer and Selkirk in the borders, today Scotland has given the world one voice. The campaign to remain within the European Single Market has won the election by a landslide of historic proportions, bettered only in the Devolution Referendum of 1997. Hope has triumphed over fear, openness has triumphed over isolationism. The nation’s people have endorsed the government’s position, even in the solid blue borders, and all of us over at St Andrew’s House will be eternally grateful for this immense support.

South of the Solway and the Tweed, however, the results were not so positive. Let it be known that all members of the government deeply regret the fact that the English people have chosen to turn their backs on Europe and the wider world. I would urge them to reconsider their verdict in the future, but it is a decision that we all accept and respect, it is not our position to decree to England what their political future should be. Likewise, the votes of England’s regions should not be allowed to take a wrecking ball to the economy or our nation, not to mention Northern Ireland, Wales and Gibraltar. There is a better way.

That better way involves cooperation between Edinburgh and London, summits, joint decision making because Scotland should not be taken out of the European Single Market against its will. Creative constitutional solutions will have to be found from within the Joint Ministerial Committee and I have every faith that they will be. All options remain firmly on the table for Scotland’s constitutional future because the European Single Market is one of the most flexible organisations in economics. The Faroe Islands prove that you can have different degrees of access within a single sovereign state, Switzerland shows that access is still possible even if you are a member of neither the European Free Trade Association or the European Union. We should not be looking at the future as a choice between merely two prospects. I am more than willing to work day and night to find something acceptable to those on both sides of the border, and I am sure that the Westminster government are likewise.

If they are not, then I will gently remind our common weal that any bill repatriating power from Brussels to these isles requires the consent of our parliament. If a solution to the Scottish Single Market problem is not found, then I will be unable to recommend that parliament gives its consent. This has never happened before in devolution’s history and ignorance of this would make a mockery of democracy in our country. I’m sure that no one, from any political party wishes to go down that road. I would therefore like to invite opposition MSPs, committed to finding a way to keep the nation within the single market, to discuss this with the government - together we will be stronger.

My message to Scotland tonight is that we thank you all for speaking loud and clearly and that you can trust your government to ensure that this does not fall on deaf ears.