Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon has renewed calls for a Scottish independence referendum in 2021, warning she might force the issue by taking the legal action if London tried to block it.
The minister said she hopes to hold a referendum as early as next year, a move that sets up a confrontation with the UK government that has maintained that it is too early for another vote after the Scottish people decided in favour of remaining a part of the United Kingdom in 2014.
“We are seeing across the Atlantic, what happens to those who try to hold back the tide of democracy. They get swept away,” Sturgeon said in her Scottish National Party (SNP) conference speech.
She added that she would campaign in the May 2021 Scottish Parliament election to hold a vote on independence “in the early part of the new parliament,” which will run from 2021 to 2025.
The British government led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson must give permission for any referendum and Ms Sturgeon declined to reject the possibility of going to court should the prime minister prevent another vote.
“The point about whether the Westminster Government has to agree to that [a Scottish independence referendum], that’s never been tested in court. I hope it never has to be tested in court but I don’t rule anything like that out,” Sturgeon told reporters.
SNP’s leader in Westminster, Ian Blackford added that the UK they “argue for no longer exists and they have no idea how to reimagine or reinvent it … The Tories are in a panic – they are unwilling to accept the truth that a majority of Scotland’s people now want an independent future.”
Referring to the UK government’s insistence that it will not grant the section 30 order required for the Scottish parliament to legally hold another poll, as well as their plans for a UK-wide internal market after Brexit, Blackford said, “Instead of listening to the will of the Scottish people, the Tories are attempting to deny democracy and destroy devolution.”
Scotland voted to remain a part of the UK by a margin of 55%-45% in a 2014 independence referendum that was billed as a once-in-a-generation event.
The UK government has consistently rejected the possibility of a second vote. That stance was repeated as the PM’s spokesman, Jamie Davies insisted the “people of Scotland had a vote on this, and they voted to remain part of the United Kingdom.”
But Sturgeon’s SNP, which leads the government in Edinburgh, says Brexit has altered the political landscape sufficiently to hold a so-called “indyref2” as Scotland is being hauled out of the European Union against its will.
A narrow majority of UK voters, 52%, opted to leave the EU in a 2016 referendum, but a large majority in Scotland, 68%, voted to remain a part of the bloc.
Recent opinion polls have suggested a surge of support for independence from the UK, with Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic boosting support for Scotland going alone.
