The Sunday Post (Newcastle)

Ex-Yes Scotland chief calls on Sturgeon to compromise

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Former Yes Scotland strategy chief Stephen Noon has revealed how training to become a Jesuit priest has led to a change of heart on achieving Scottish independen­ce.

Noon said that while supporters of independen­ce may not be able to achieve 100% of what they want, 90% could be “good enough”.

He went to Canada to train to become a priest after mastermind­ing the 2014 independen­ce campaign.

He said: “I was living with these lovely Jesuits in Canada, these lovely men who were really, really sweet and kind and caring. And as soon as you mention Quebec they turned and they became really kind of angry.

“It was almost quite visceral. And what that did for me – probably for the first time – was make me understand the other side of the experience. Maybe ‘wound’ is a slightly excessive word, but it had left a mark on them.”

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has vowed to make the next Westminste­r election a “de facto referendum” on independen­ce if she cannot hold a referendum next year.

But Noon said that would be “another point of escalation” in the Scottish political landscape. He suggested independen­ce campaigner­s should be “prepared to enter a conversati­on which is at a different level and enter a process where we might not get what we want, but we might get what the people of Scotland want”.

 ?? ?? Nicola Sturgeon
Nicola Sturgeon

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