‘Highly likely’ Scots will have another vote on independence
THE future of the United Kingdom lies in peril after the Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she believes it is ‘highly likely’ there will be a second vote on independence.
In Scotland, 62% of those who voted backed the UK staying in Europe, with all 32 council areas returning a majority for Remain.
The SNP leader has now confirmed that her government will begin to draw up the legislation that could see another referendum on independence within the next two years.
Ms Sturgeon said: ‘As things stand, Scotland faces the prospect of being taken out of the EU against our will. I regard that as democratically unacceptable.’
The SNP manifesto for May’s Holyrood elections said the Scottish Parliament ‘should have the right to hold another referendum if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014’, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against its wishes.
‘It is, therefore, a statement of the obvious that a second referendum must be on the table, and it is on the table,’ Ms Sturgeon said.
When Westminster triggers the process to withdraw from Europe later this year, she said ‘the UK will be on a two-year path to the EU exit door’. She added: ‘If Parliament judges that a second referendum is the best or only way to protect our place in Europe, it must have the option to hold one within that timescale. That means we must act now to protect that position. I can therefore confirm today in order to protect that position we will begin to prepare the legislation that will be required to enable a new independence referendum to take place if and when Parliament so decides.’
Ms Sturgeon, who campaigned for a Remain vote, said: ‘This is not a situation that I wanted Scotland or the UK to be in today.’
Her stance was backed by former SNP leader Alex Salmond. He said in on Sky News: ‘The sensible thing for Scotland to do would never be to leave the European Union.’
He said he was certain Ms Sturgeon will now push for a second independence vote.
Furthermore, former Labour first minister Henry McLeish said the debate over Scotland’s future had ‘massively changed overnight’.
‘The issue is we have now left the EU and Scots now have to make a decision on where they think their true interests lie,’ he said.
Harry Potter author JK Rowling, a high-profile supporter of the United Kingdom during the 2014 referendum, tweeted that ‘many No voters will think again now’.
But Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson, another prominent figure in the pro-EU camp, said staging a second independence referendum is not ‘in the best interests of the people of Scotland’.
Ms Davidson said: ‘We do not address the challenges of leaving the European Union by leaving our own Union of nations, our biggest market and our closest friends.”
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale described the Brexit victory as a ‘bad result for jobs and for the economy in Scotland and the UK’.
She discussed the UK’s vote to leave the EU with Ms Sturgeon on Friday afternoon. Ms Dugdale said: ‘We both have profound disagreements about the constitutional future of Scotland but I stand ready to work with her in the best interests of the people of Scotland. Now is the time for calm heads. Labour’s manifesto ruled out a second referendum in the lifetime of this Parliament – we won’t be changing our minds any time soon.
‘However, on the question of independence, many of the fundamental questions that were unresolved and unanswered in 2014, remain so. Not least the question of currency.
‘What we don’t need today is more turmoil, more upheaval and more economic chaos.’
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said the Conservatives’ ‘gamble’ with the country’s place in Europe is now hammering the economy and risking the future of the UK.
He said: ‘This referendum was a reckless gamble inflicted on the UK by a Conservative Party leader more focused on the divisions in his party than doing the right thing for our country and its economy.’
Meanwhile, the Brexit result was welcomed by US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who hailed it as an ‘amazing vote’.
The controversial tycoon, visiting one of his golf resorts in Scotland, said of Leave campaign’s victory: ‘Basically, they took back their country. That’s a great thing.’