STURGEON BLOWS INDEPENDENCE BUGLE

Edinburgh: Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon on Monday demanded a new independence referendumin late 2018 or early 2019, once the terms of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union have become clearer.

An independence vote that could rip apart the world’s fifth largest economy just months before Brexit raises the stakes for Prime Minister Theresa May as she prepares to trigger two years of formal Brexit talks.

“If Scotland is to have a real choice — when the terms of Brexit are known but before it is too late to choose our If Scotland is to have a real choice, then that choice must be offered between the autumn of 2018 and the spring of 2019

Nicola Sturgeon, own course — then that choice must be offered between the autumn of next year, 2018, and the spring of 2019,” Sturgeon told reporters in Edinburgh.

In the June 23 Brexit referendum, the UK-wide vote was 51.948.1 per cent to leave the EU. Voters in England and Waleschose to leave while in Scotland and Northern Ireland they voted to stay, and since then the strains on the United Kingdom have deepened.

Hours after Ms Sturgeon spoke, Northern Ireland’s largest Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein said it wanted a referendum on splitting from the United Kingdom “as soon as possible”.

“Brexit will be a disaster for the economy, and a disaster for the people of Ireland,” Sinn Fein’s leader in Northern Ireland Michelle O’Neill told reporters in Belfast.

“A referendum on Irish unity has to happen as soon as possible.”

Ms Sturgeon said she would next week seek the approval of the Scottish Parliament to discuss with the UK government the details enabling a second referendum to take place. The detailed plans for a referendum should be decided by Scotland’s parliament, she said. — Reuters