Sturgeon: Legal fight on Indyref
NICOLA STURGEON has told a US audience that the SNP may go to court to force a new independence referendum.
Addressing academics at Stanford University in California, the First Minister said the necessity to have Westminster’s permission for a referendum had not been challenged. She said: ‘It’s not been tested in court, but in 2014 we accepted that for there to be a referendum in Scotland... it required the legal consent of the UK Government.’
Before leaving for America, Miss Sturgeon had threatened to ‘set out steps’ to push through her demand for Indyref 2 after Holyrood backed another vote.
Prime Minister Theresa May said there can be no discussion of another vote until Brexit is dealt with.
NICOLA Sturgeon has given the strongest hint yet that she could drag the UK Government through the courts in a bid to secure an independence referendum.
The SNP leader said last night that Westminster’s power over the constitution has ‘never been tested in court’ and that she is ‘certain’ there will be another referendum, even though she admitted that some Scots are ‘understandably’ reluctant to have another vote on Scotland’s future.
Miss Sturgeon made the comments during a speech at Stanford University in California in the latest stage of her taxpayer-funded trip to the United States, which critics branded her ‘global grievance tour’.
Asked about the process for securing another referendum, she said: ‘One of the things that is reserved to the United Kingdom Government is the constitution, which is quite a vague term. It has never been tested in court but in 2014 we accepted that for there to be a referendum in Scotland – for the Scottish parliament to legislate for a referendum – it required the legal consent of the United Kingdom Government. And that, in 2014, was
‘Not a sustainable position’
inferred through what became known as the Edinburgh Agreement.’
Regarding Theresa May’s decision to refuse her request for a referendum, she said: ‘That is not a sustainable position, frankly, for the UK Government to take. There will be another referendum on Scottish independence, of that I am fairly certain.’
She admitted to her audience of aca- demics and students that some people in Scotland are ‘entirely understandably reluctant’ to have another referendum so soon after the 2014 vote.
Declaring herself certain that Scotland will split from the UK, she claimed Scots will need to choose between Brexit and independence. She said: ‘My own view is that we will choose the second course.’
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: ‘There must be a crack in Nicola Sturgeon’s silicon chip for her to want to compound the shock of Brexit with a new set of barriers that could see Scotland outside of both the UK and the EU.’
During her trip to California, Miss Sturgeon met Apple chief executive Tim Cook, representatives of technology firm Tesla and the Governor of California, Jerry Brown.
She will today travel to New York for three more days of engagements Comment
WHEN a highly successful businessman warns the uncertainty caused by the SNP’s constant agitation for another independence referendum is hitting investor confidence, we should sit up and take notice.
Robert Kilgour, a leading entrepreneur in the care home sector, says the uncertainty the SNP is generating comes at the worst possible time for scotland, with the economy in a delicate state.
Every job is precious; every penny of inward investment vital.
so to hear that firms would rather ‘wait to see’ what happens in scotland before committing finance here, or would prefer instead to put their money into projects south of the Border, is grim news for working families.
Mr Kilgour is launching a new business group which will campaign for the Union, saying firms were ‘too slow and too shy’ to talk up the benefits of the Union during the 2014 referendum campaign.
SNP policy has saddled scots with the highest income tax burden of any workers in the UK. the Nationalists’ business rates rejig is hammering companies.
the emerging picture is of a scotland where companies are seen only as cashcows for the government; where entrepreneurs are ‘the rich’ who can be exploited.
that has ominous implications for jobs in this country. A CREDULOUs BBC claims Nicola Sturgeon’s jaunt to America is ‘designed to strengthen ties between scotland and the United states’.
secretive meetings with bigwigs from Apple; a speech to a university in which she claimed independence is inevitable; a climate deal with the state of California that’s barely worth the paper it is written on – how they fit in with that lofty aim is a mystery.
And what an insult to the scottish people that a bunch of American academics are first to hear that the SNP’s Big Idea for undermining the Prime Minister’s firm ‘not yet’ on a new referendum is an expensive legal challenge.