Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced plans on Tuesday for a second referendum to be held on Scottish independence in October next year, vowing to take legal action to ensure a vote if the British government tried to block it.
Sturgeon spoke as the Scottish government, which is led by her pro-independence Scottish National Party, published a referendum bill outlining plans for the secession vote to take place on Oct. 19, 2023.
She also said she would be writing to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson for permission to hold a consultative referendum, but had already set in motion plans to get the legal authority should he try to block her.
“The issue of independence cannot be suppressed. It must be resolved democratically. And that must be through a process that is above reproach and commands confidence,” Sturgeon told lawmakers in the devolved Scottish Parliament.
Ahead of Sturgeon’s speech, Johnson again ruled out the argument for Scottish independence.
“We certainly think that our plan for a stronger economy works better when the UK is together than when it isn’t together,” he told British broadcasters from a G7 summit in Germany.
Sturgeon’s statement came as Queen Elizabeth II made an unexpected appearance at “Holyrood week”, an annual series of ceremonial events in the Scottish capital.
The 96-year-old monarch has been suffering from difficulties walking and standing since an unscheduled night in hospital last October that forced her to cancel public engagements.
As head of state, the monarch is politically neutral, but the Daily Telegraph said her visit to Edinburgh “packs an ever-so-polite political punch”.
“Without speaking — and indeed almost without moving in public — she embarked on just the sort of show of soft diplomacy she has spent 70 years perfecting,” the newspaper said.
In 2014, ahead of the previous independence referendum, she told well-wishers near her Balmoral estate in northeast Scotland: “I hope people think very carefully about the future.”
Scotland voted by 55 percent to 45 percent to remain in the UK, after then UK prime minister David Cameron agreed a “Section 30” order that made the result of the vote legally binding.
The legality of the SNP-led government ploughing ahead without London granting another such order will be central to the case before the Supreme Court.
Donald Cameron, the Scottish Conservatives’ constitutional spokesman, said Sturgeon’s “obsessive push for another divisive independence referendum is the height of self-indulgence and irresponsibility.
“Right now, ministers should be prioritising the global cost-of-living crisis, fixing our NHS (National Health Service) and rebuilding our economy from the pandemic,” he said. – Agency report.
