LONDON (AP) \u2014 Scotland\u2019s leader said Monday that she will renew her push for independence from the United Kingdom next year, with the aim of holding a referendum on secession in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the independence campaign, stalled by the pandemic, \u201cwill resume in earnest\u201d in spring 2022, \u201cCOVID permitting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn the course of next year, I will initiate the process necessary to enable a referendum before the end of 2023,\u201d Sturgeon told a conference of her Scottish National Party. \u201cAnd just as importantly, our party will set out afresh the positive case for independence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scottish voters opted to remain part of the United Kingdom by a margin of 55% to 45% in a 2014 referendum that was billed as a once-in-a-generation choice. But the SNP, which heads the Edinburgh-based Scottish government, argues that Britain\u2019s departure from the European Union last year has radically changed the political and economic landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 out of the 27-nation bloc against its will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sturgeon faces a big obstacle to a new independence vote: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose government must agree to a binding referendum. Johnson is adamant he won\u2019t consent, meaning any push for a new referendum could end up in the courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sturgeon says the fact that voters in May elected an independence-supporting majority to the Scottish parliament \u2014 where the SNP governs with support from the pro-independence Green Party \u2014 makes an inarguable moral case for a new referendum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But she acknowledges that independence supporters will have to make a new economic argument for breaking away from the U.K. In 2014, the SNP touted Scotland\u2019s North Sea oil wealth as a bulwark of future prosperity. The Scottish government now accepts that fossil fuels must be phased out to fight climate change, potentially leaving a big hole in Scotland\u2019s finances, already battered by the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sturgeon told party members that her government would \u201cbe candid about the challenges the transition to independence will present, and set out clearly how we can and will overcome them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd then, friends, we will ask the people to decide,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON (AP) \u2014 Scotland\u2019s leader said Monday that she wi […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1043,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041\/revisions\/1043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}