Scottish first
minister Nicola Sturgeon hits out at the Conservative government in
Westminster, saying that it would be “undemocratic” for the party
- which has just one Scottish MP - to deny the country the right to
hold a second independence referendum. Sturgeon’s comments come
after prime minister Theresa May said that “now is not the time”
for Scotland to hold another poll
The Scottish first
minister, Nicola Sturgeon, says Brexit means the Scottish National
party has a ‘cast-iron mandate’ for another Scottish independence
referendum. We outline what has to happen before another independence
vote can take place
Scottish
independence: May has sealed fate of UK, says Sturgeon
First
minister attacks ‘outrageous’ refusal to allow second referendum
before Brexit talks conclude
Severin
Carrell and Heather Stewart
Thursday 16 March
2017 22.35 GMT
Nicola Sturgeon has
accused Theresa May of sealing the fate of the United Kingdom after
the prime minister rejected her demand for a second Scottish
independence referendum before the Brexit talks conclude.
The first minister
said May’s stance was “completely outrageous and unacceptable”,
hours after the prime minister had insisted that “now is not the
time” for the referendum that the SNP had hoped to stage between
autumn 2019 and spring 2019.
Sturgeon said on
Thursday: “It’s an argument for independence, really, in a
nutshell, that Westminster thinks it has got the right to block the
democratically elected mandate of the Scottish government and the
majority in the Scottish parliament. History may look back on today
and see it as the day the fate of the union was sealed.”
She insisted she
would press on with plans for a vote at the Scottish parliament next
week seeking its approval to request the legal power from Westminster
to stage the referendum on Holyrood’s terms – a vote she is
expected to narrowly win with Scottish Green party support.
But May said earlier
that the Tories would not allow any discussion of the referendum
until the UK’s Brexit deal had been signed and Scottish voters had
time to weigh it up, implying any referendum may not happen until
2021 at the earliest. “To look at the issue at this time would be
unfair, because people wouldn’t have the necessary information to
make such a crucial decision,” May added.
The Tory gamble is
driven by a series of opinion polls showing that a large majority of
Scottish voters do not want a referendum before Brexit, even though
support for independence has jumped from about 45% to nearly 50%
after May spelt out her plans in January for a hard Brexit.
May’s blunt
intervention is likely to goad SNP activists into an even more
energetic independence campaign this summer as they seek to build
support for a referendum, starting at the SNP’s spring conference
this weekend.
Sturgeon predicted
that May’s position would soon prove to be politically
unsustainable. “This is not the Iron Lady – this is someone whose
government is in chaos, chopping and changing all of the time,” she
told BBC Reporting Scotland.
UK government
sources indicated on Wednesday that May would not formally respond to
Sturgeon’s timetable before the first minister had officially
requested legal authority for a referendum, under section 30 of the
Scotland Act 1998, after next week’s Holyrood vote on the proposal.
But that changed
unexpectedly on Thursday. Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader,
and David Mundell, the UK government’s Scottish secretary, were
forced to deny that May had been persuaded to make her statement on
the eve of the SNP conference to provoke its activists into taking a
far more partisan stance.
Mundell argued it
would be discourteous to Holyrood if the UK government failed to make
clear before next week’s vote in the Scottish parliament that it
had already decided to reject outright Sturgeon’s timetable.
Davidson and Mundell
said that lack of appetite for an early referendum and the fact that
Holyrood’s five parties were split on the issue undermined
Sturgeon’s claim of a mandate.
The SNP is currently
in a minority government at Holyrood but had a substantial majority
in 2012, when all five parties agreed that staging the first
referendum in 2014 was justified. That was “a fundamental reason
why now is not the right time to take Scotland back to the
precipice”, Davidson said.
“And that is
because there is no clear political or public consent for this to
take place. The country – and our parliament – is divided not
over just the question of independence, but over whether we should
even hold a referendum or not.”
Davidson’s
spokesman confirmed the Tories could reverse their position if there
was a substantial and sustained surge in support for independence and
in demands for a referendum in the next two years.
There were signs too
of further movement on timing from Sturgeon’s government. Pressed
after May’s statement about the first minister’s hint earlier
this week she could agree to the referendum shortly after Brexit, her
spokesman said Sturgeon believed she had the right to stage it until
the next Scottish elections in May 2021.
He insisted Sturgeon
would continue to fight for the vote to be held by spring 2019, but
added that her mandate for a referendum, on the grounds that Scotland
was being taken out of the EU against its will, lasted until those
elections.
“The first
minister has made clear her preferred timescale and that is the
timescale we’re working to,” he said. But asked if that meant a
referendum could be held by 2021, he said yes, adding: “The mandate
is clear – the mandate is for the parliamentary term.”
May’s decision to
resist agreeing a referendum until well after Brexit in 2019 implies
it could not be held until 2021 at the earliest. It would take up to
a year for both governments and both parliaments to agree and
authorise a legally constituted referendum. The Electoral Commission
would need up to six months to decide on a question, with another six
months needed for the campaign.
The prime minister
is to reinforce her claims that the UK will prosper after Brexit on
Friday in a speech to the Conservative Spring forum in Cardiff,
emphasising her attachment to “our precious, precious union” as
she launches what she calls her “Plan for Britain”.
May will describe
the relationship between Scotland and the rest of the UK as “more
than just a constitutional artefact” by arguing “it is a union
between all of our citizens, whoever we are and wherever we’re
from”.
As she prepares to
invoke article 50, the formal process for leaving the EU, by the end
of the month, May will insist it is essential the UK strikes the
right deal. “We have pulled together as one and succeeded together.
We are four nations, but at heart we are one people.”
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