May, Sturgeon clash over new vote
BRITAIN: British Prime Minister Theresa May yesterday ruled out Nicola Sturgeon’s plans for a new Scottish independence referendum before Brexit, but postponed triggering Article 50 after the First Minister’s demands caught her by surprise.
In a day of high drama, Sturgeon appeared to wrong-foot No 10 Downing Street when she announced that she would set the wheels in motion for a second referendum next week, and insisted the ballot should take place between late 2018 and early 2019 while the Brexit negotiations are still going on.
May issued a stern rebuke, telling Sturgeon that ’’politics is not a game’’, and accusing her of ‘‘tunnel vision’’.
Sources close to May said she would not allow a referendum until several months after Britain’s exit from the European Union.
Hours after May’s riposte, Downing Street made the unexpected announcement that she would not now invoke Article 50 before March 27.
The Article 50 Bill is expected to receive royal assent from the Queen, and it had been widely anticipated that May would choose today to make the historic announcement. Whitehall departments had been told to work to a March 14 deadline.
Downing Street yesterday insisted that May had always intended to wait until the end of the month, but Sturgeon’s announcement left the prime minister scrambling to seize back the initiative. The referendum row overshadowed May’s achievement in successfully steering the Article 50 Bill through the House of Commons.
A threatened Tory rebellion on the issue of giving MPs a ‘‘meaningful vote’’ on the final Brexit deal failed to materialise, with the result that two House of Lords amendments to the bill were defeated in the Commons.
May and Sturgeon now appear set for a prolonged and bitter fight, and May faces the unprecedented challenge of negotiating Brexit while attempting to see off a new campaign for Scottish independence.
‘‘The tunnel vision the SNP has shown today is deeply regrettable; it sets Scotland on a course for more uncertainty and division, creating huge uncertainty,’’ May said. ’’And this is at a time when the evidence is that ... the majority of the Scottish people don’t want a second independence referendum.’’
Drawing attention to Sturgeon’s record on domestic policy, May told her that ‘‘instead of playing politics with the future of our country, the Scottish Government should focus on delivering good government and services for the people of Scotland’’.
Sturgeon claimed she had been forced to act because May had refused to consider a special Brexit deal for Scotland that would allow it to remain part of the European single market.
Her decision to call for a referendum as early as next year represents a huge gamble. A BMG poll for the Herald newspaper yesterday showed 44 per cent of respondents opposing independence, with just 41 per cent supporting it. Equally significantly, 49 per cent said there should be no referendum before Brexit, with just 39 per cent wanting one.
Sturgeon said she would next week ask the Scottish Parliament to agree on the details of a section 30 order with Westminster, the legal process that allows a referendum to be held.
She argued that by late next year the shape of the United Kingdom’s Brexit deal with the EU would be clearer, giving Scots a chance to decide between a future as part of the union but outside the EU, or a future outside the union but as part of the EU.
- Telegraph Group