Sturgeon urged to rule out second independence vote
First Minister willing to park UK break-up if soft Brexit deal secured
NICOLA Sturgeon has been urged to rule out a second referendum after saying she would only park the issue temporarily if she secured a bespoke Brexit deal for Scotland.
The First Minister said she was prepared to “put aside” her preferred option of leaving the UK “in the particular context and timescale of Brexit”, but not beyond it.
Ms Sturgeon said she was seeking “consensus and compromise” with the UK Government over Brexit to secure Scotland’s continued membership of the EU single market, but it remained her belief that independence was the “direction of travel” for Scotland.
Opposition parties accused the First Minister of keeping Scotland “in limbo” and playing “a never ending game” with the country that would ultimately damage the economy.
A BMG poll for The Herald this week found most Scots against a second referendum in 2017.
The day after the UK voted 52-48 for Leave and Scotland voted 62-38 for Remain in June, Ms Sturgeon said a second independence referendum had become “highly likely”.
Last month, she set out a blueprint for keeping Scotland in the single market, which depends on devolution of new powers and sacrifices by Theresa May in forthcoming Brexit talks.
Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland, Ms Sturgeon said she wanted the whole UK to stay in the single market, but accepted a hard Brexit might prevent that.
She said: “We’ve put forward how we think this can be done – of keeping Scotland in the single market while continuing to protect free trade across the rest of the UK – and said very clearly, of course, that would require additional powers for the Scottish Parliament. So, I’ve, in a sense, been willing and am willing to put aside my preferred option of independence in the EU to see if we can explore a consensus and compromise option.”
But asked whether securing her dealonBrexitwouldmeangiving up on a second independence referendum, she replied: “I’m never going to stop arguing for independence.
“I think Scotland will become independent and I think that’s the direction of travel.
“But we’re talking at the moment in the context of the Brexit vote.”
Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson said: “Nicola Sturgeon has spent six months trying desperately to use Brexit as a way of increasing support for independence. She’s failed.
“We are being left in the worst of all possible worlds. Scotland is kept in limbo as Nicola Sturgeon tries to find an escape route after marching her troops to the top of a mountain, but still keeping the threat of a second referendum on the table as a possibility for the future.”
Labour MSP Iain Gray said: “The vast majority of people in Scotland don’t want to go through another referendum.
“They want the SNP to address the crisis in our NHS and clean up the mess Nationalist ministers have made of education.”