INDYREF 2? STURGEON WOBBLES

First Minister tells followers to stop obsessing over timing for another ballot

‘Now time for her to rule it out for good’

NICOLA Sturgeon has urged members of her party to ‘stop obsessing’ about the timing of a second independence referendum.

And yesterday she stopped short of saying it will definitely take place while she is First Minister.

The SNP leader wants activists to make the case for independence rather than asking when another vote may happen.

Asked if there would definitely be a rerun of the 2014 poll while she is in power, she would only say: ‘I think there will be.’

The party’s Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, also refused to say if another vote would happen before 2021, insisting it would be up to Scots to decide when it takes place.

Opponents urged Miss Sturgeon to take the threat of another referendum off the table.

The comments came during a round of TV interviews yesterday – a day after Miss Sturgeon used her keynote address to her party’s conference to urge activists to focus on persuading those who ‘still ask why’ Scotland should be independent.

On the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Miss Sturgeon said she will not give further consideration to timing until there is more clarity about Brexit, ‘which I hope is sooner rather than later’. She added: ‘What I was saying to my party conference was let’s stop obsessing all the time about when we might get the chance to vote on independence again. Instead, let’s engage people in the substantive arguments.’

Miss Sturgeon first renewed her bid for a referendum on tearing Scotland out of the UK in response to the Brexit vote. She signalled yesterday another vote is unlikely to happen before Britain leaves the EU next year.

Asked on Sophy Ridge on Sunday on Sky News if there would be another referendum while she is First Minister, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘I think there will be, I think Scotland will become independent.

‘But on a question of timing, for the last 12 months I have been saying very clearly that I don’t think it is right to consider that decision while things are so unclear and uncertain around Brexit.’

Miss Sturgeon insists she has a mandate from the people of Scotland to hold another vote.

But Mr Blackford appeared to suggest that another vote will only take place if support for Yes rises. According to a YouGov poll on Friday, support for independence remains on 45 per cent, the same as the 2014 referendum result.

Asked on the BBC’s Sunday Politics Scotland programme when another vote should happen, Mr Blackford said: ‘We need to get to the end of the Brexit negotiations in the autumn.

‘The First Minister, myself, all understand that if we want to deal with the problems that there are in Scotland, if we want to deliver that wealthier, fairer Scotland, it has to come with independence. The people of Scotland will decide when the time is right to do that.’

Pressed on whether that will be before the next Holyrood elections in 2021, he said only that the question of timing will be considered ‘once Brexit is out of the way’.

Scottish Conservative chief whip Maurice Golden said: ‘The one person who needs to stop obsessing about independence is the First Minister.

‘She could do that by taking the threat of another independence referendum off the table altogether.’

Labour MSP James Kelly said: ‘Nicola Sturgeon is the person that put a second poll on separation on the table, it’s now time for her to rule it out for good.’

Miss Sturgeon also claimed that the EU Withdrawal Bill, which is heading back to the Commons tomorrow, is ‘unconstitutional’.

She wrote to Commons Speaker John Bercow asking for a vote on the issue of the Scottish parliament refusing to grant consent for the legislation.

In her letter, the First Minister says she believes Scotland now faces ‘an unprecedented constitutional position, which puts at risk 19 years of constitutional convention and practice, on which devolution relies’.

THE SNP conference offered a vivid snapshot of a party in a state of utter disarray, beginning with Nicola Sturgeon’s car crash Channel 4 interview on Friday.

Questioned about the start-up costs for an independent Scotland, she could not recall the figure in the Growth Commission report – which she herself had commissioned.

In fact the estimate, as she was reminded by the interviewer, was £450million, while she also was unable to recall the £200million cost of setting up a Scottish social security agency.

After this bout of amnesia Miss Sturgeon risked the wrath of her powerbase by calling for the party to ‘stop obsessing’ about the timing of a second independence referendum.

There was also the announcement of an inflation-busting 3 per cent pay rise for nurses and doctors earning up to £80,000 a year, apparently to be financed by the SNP’s income tax hike – which applies to anyone earning more than £33,000.

Miss Sturgeon was ‘proud that our Government was the first in the UK to lift the 1 per cent pay cap’, but she failed to mention that local authority wage rises will be bankrolled by council tax increases and swingeing cuts.

Meanwhile, the party’s flagship childcare pledge is in crisis after it emerged that the number of private nursery providers likely to offer the expanded hours has fallen sharply from 51 per cent last year to just 30 per cent.

With her personal popularity in decline and no evidence of an increase in backing for independence, it is understandable – if richly ironic – that Miss Sturgeon should seek to shift focus away from Indyref 2, even if it means a fierce backlash from large sections of the party membership.

Now, she seems finally to have realised, is not the time.

But the conference also illustrated a fundamental dearth of dynamic ideas for reform of failing public services, beyond a pay rise that cannot begin to tackle the systemic and deep-rooted problems in our chaotic and under-performing NHS. Commendable as such a move might be, it does little more than scratch the surface.

The truth is that her supporters will never allow Miss Sturgeon to ditch the independence ‘obsession’ – and, even if she did, it would only expose her Government’s lamentable record to further scrutiny.