LONDON- On Thursday, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon demanded the right to draft a new independence referendum, all while challenging British PM Boris Johnson to keep the UK together as he looks forward to its upcoming split from the European Union.
This statement comes a month before Britain embarks on its journey out of the EU. Nicola Sturgeon will say that she has won a mandate to call for a fresh independence vote. She wants to publish a document labelled ‘Scotland’s Right to Choose’ wherein she demands Britain’s parliament to transfer power to the devolved Scotland parliament for a new referendum authorisation. All of this just sets the stage for a constitutional stand-off.
Johnson’s Conservative government has said over and over again that it will reject another vote demand.
“There is a clear mandate for this nation to have the power to decide its own future,” Sturgeon will say, according to extracts released by her office. “The result of last week’s general election makes that mandate unarguable.”
Scots rejected independence by 55 to 45 percent in a 2014 referendum but a three-year political crisis in London and differences over Brexit have strained the bonds that tie the United Kingdom together.
Every region of Scotland voted to stay in the EU in 2016, while the United Kingdom as a whole voted to leave, leading Sturgeon to claim a new referendum is justified as Scotland is now being dragged out of the bloc against its will.
If Scotland voted for independence it would mean the United Kingdom would lose about a third of its landmass, almost a tenth of its population, a core ingredient of its identity, and rip apart the world’s fifth biggest economy.
Opinion polls suggest Scottish support for leaving the United Kingdom is far stronger than it was before the start of the 2014 campaign, although most polls suggest there is not currently a majority in favour.
In her speech, Sturgeon will reiterate she will only seek to secede from the United Kingdom through a properly agreed referendum.
“We understand that a referendum must be accepted as legitimate, here in Scotland and the UK, as well as in the EU and the wider international community,” she will say.
Unionists say independence would needlessly break up the United Kingdom and usher in years of financial, economic and political uncertainty.
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field.