Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
FM: Indyref2 will be ‘broad church’
NICOLA Sturgeon has said the campaign for Scottish independence will remain a “broad church”, as she dismissed a question over whether she would share a platform with Alex Salmond.
The first minister said the issue of her predecessor was “one of the least important questions of the entire independence debate”.
Yesterday, she and Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie released the first in a series of papers which will form the Scottish Government’s updated prospectus for independence.
Taking questions from journalists, the first minister was asked if she would like to see a “broad church” Yes campaign as there was in the 2014 independence referendum and if she would share a platform with Mr Salmond.
Addressing the point about Mr Salmond, she said: “That latter one probably qualifies as one of the least important questions of the entire independence debate.
“It’s not about me, it’s not about Alex Salmond, with the greatest of respect it’s not even about Patrick
Harvie – it’s about the future of Scotland and I’m going to continue to focus on the issues that matter to people across Scotland.
“The campaign for independence is broad church and will be broad church.
“Actually, that is one of its great strengths, because independence fundamentally is about democracy.
“In any democracy you have a difference of opinion and people decide what path they want to take – that’s a strength and not in any way a weakness.”
Mr Salmond now leads the Alba Party, which has two Scottish MPs who were originally elected under SNP banners.
However, Alba has failed to win any MSPs or councillors in elections so far.
During the launch Ms Sturgeon urged Prime Minister Boris Johnson to “be a democrat” as she claimed her government has an “indisputable mandate” for another vote on independence.
The release of a document laid out the economic and social differences between Scotland and other small countries, attributing the deficit to not having the full powers of an independent country.
The first minister was not able to give a projected timescale for a postindependence Scotland’s economy to reach the level of those in the document, which included Norway, Switzerland and Denmark.
She did, however, promise a “significant update” in the near future on how such a vote could be held without the powers being granted by Westminster.
She recalled that when she was re-elected as first minister last May it was on a “clear commitment to give the people of Scotland the choice of becoming an independent country”.
Ms Sturgeon also noted Holyrood has a “decisive majority” of MSPs in favour of independence, arguing as a result that “the Scottish Parliament therefore has an “indisputable democratic mandate”.
She claimed if the UK Government “had any respect at all for democracy” it would grant a Section 30 order, allowing a legally-binding referendum to be held, as happened in 2014.
Last night a spokeswoman for the UK Government said: “Now is not the time to be talking about another referendum – people across Scotland rightly want and expect to see both governments working together.”