Scotland's leader aims for independence referendum in 2023

LONDON – Scotland’s person said Monday that she volition renew her propulsion for independency from the United Kingdom adjacent year, with the purpose of holding a referendum connected secession successful 2023.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the independency campaign, stalled by the pandemic, “will resume successful earnest” successful outpouring 2022, “COVID permitting.”

“In the people of adjacent year, I volition initiate the process indispensable to alteration a referendum earlier the extremity of 2023,” Sturgeon told a league of her Scottish National Party. “And conscionable arsenic importantly, our enactment volition acceptable retired afresh the affirmative lawsuit for independence.”

Scottish voters opted to stay portion of the United Kingdom by a borderline of 55% to 45% successful a 2014 referendum that was billed arsenic a once-in-a-generation choice. But the SNP, which heads the Edinburgh-based Scottish government, argues that Britain’s departure from the European Union past twelvemonth has radically changed the governmental and economical landscape.

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In a 2016 referendum, 52% of U.K. voters backed leaving the EU, but 62% of Scots voted to remain, and Sturgeon argues that Scotland has been dragged retired of the 27-nation bloc against its will.

Sturgeon faces a large obstacle to a caller independency vote: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose authorities indispensable hold to a binding referendum. Johnson is adamant helium won't consent, meaning immoderate propulsion for a caller referendum could extremity up successful the courts.

Sturgeon says the information that voters successful May elected an independence-supporting bulk to the Scottish parliament — wherever the SNP governs with enactment from the pro-independence Green Party — makes an inarguable motivation lawsuit for a caller referendum.

But she acknowledges that independency supporters volition person to marque a caller economical statement for breaking distant from the U.K. In 2014, the SNP touted Scotland's North Sea lipid wealthiness arsenic a bulwark of aboriginal prosperity. The Scottish authorities present accepts that fossil fuels indispensable beryllium phased retired to combat clime change, perchance leaving a large spread successful Scotland’s finances, already battered by the pandemic.

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Sturgeon told enactment members that her authorities would “be candid astir the challenges the modulation to independency volition present, and acceptable retired intelligibly however we tin and volition flooded them.”

“And then, friends, we volition inquire the radical to decide,” she said.

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