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LONDON – Nationalist lawmakers in Scotland have again fired the original gun for independence and created a potential clash with the government of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, saying they would make plans to hold a new public referendum on secession from the United Kingdom.
Scottish Prime Minister Nicholas Sturgeon on Tuesday outlined proposals for a “renewed request for independence”, launching the first of several political documents that put forward the argument for a vote on the country’s delegated parliament – probably without the British government’s consent, which London says is required. by law.
“Scotland under Westminster control has been detained,” Sturgeon told reporters. “For Scotland, independence will put the levers of success in our hands.
Scotland’s last referendum on independence was held in 2014, when a majority of Scots (55 per cent) voted to stay in the UK
However, the Scottish National Party (SNP) for Sturgeon’s independence and the pro-independence allies won a majority in the Scottish Parliament in 2021. The SNP ruled with the support of the Green Party.
“The people of Scotland have elected a Scottish Parliament by a strong majority in favor of both independence and the right to vote. “The Scottish Parliament therefore has an undisputed democratic mandate, and we intend to respect it,” she told reporters in Edinburgh.
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The UK’s divorce from the European Union has also changed the game, Sturgeon said. Scotland voted overwhelmingly against Brexit, 62% against 38%, during the 2016 referendum, which she said left Scotland at a “critical point”.
The SNP has previously said it wants to hold a new independence vote by the end of 2023.
Johnson strongly opposed a new referendum, saying on Tuesday that “the decision to independence was taken by the Scottish people only a few years ago, in recent memory. I think we have to respect that. “
He said all UK governments needed to focus on the cost of living crisis and the continuing impact of the coronavirus pandemic, urging Sturgeon and other lawmakers to “focus on what people really want to deal with”.
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Sturgeon acknowledged that the Johnson government is likely to challenge any effort by the Scottish Parliament to call for a binding referendum without a special order issued by Westminster, but she said that would not deter lawmakers.
“Democracy within the rule of law is the way in which differences in political or constitutional views must always be resolved,” she said. “If we want to maintain democracy here in Scotland, we need to build a way forward. “But we have to do it legally.”
Such a vote could destroy the more than 300-year-old alliance between Scotland and England. Wales and Northern Ireland also have smaller, decentralized parliaments in the United Kingdom. They pass laws on issues such as education and health care, but rely on Westminster for most funding and other key functions, such as defense.
John Curtis, a leading Scottish sociologist and professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, told the BBC on Tuesday that opinion polls were largely “split in the middle”.
“If you take the last half dozen polls, they show an average of 48 ‘yes’ and 52 ‘no,'” he said on independence. “Both sides must campaign, because at the moment neither side in the dispute can be sure that it will win.
Some Scottish newspapers on Wednesday accused Sturgeon of succumbing to pressure to “calm her political base”, and opposition lawmakers there called her announcement a distraction.
“Same old speech by Nicola Sturgeon,” said Scottish Labor leader Anas Sarwar. “It is she who takes us back to the politics of the past, focusing on division and struggle and trying to pit a Scotsman against a Scotsman.
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