LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th November, 2020) The leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Scotland's first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said on Monday that she wants a second independence referendum to be held on the early part of the next Scottish Parliament's term the next year, despite the UK central government's opposition to grant permission for another vote.
"I want to see it in the early part of the next term of the Scottish parliament rather than the later part," Sturgeon told the Sky news broadcaster ahead of her closing speech at the SNP conference.
The election for the Scottish parliament will be held in May, 2021, and according to by-election polls, the SNP, which won 48 of the 59 Scottish seats in the UK Parliament in the December 2019 general elections, is on course for a clean sweep.
The leader of the Scottish semiautonomous government refused to set a precise date for the vote but said that "the sooner Scotland can have the powers of independence so we chart our own future, the better it will be for all of us."
"I think if we rebuild from COVID, it is really important that we have all the tools and the powers to do that properly. And a country that is rebuilding is the one a majority of Scots want to see, no one in the image of [UK Prime Minister] Boris Johnson and his band of Brexiteers," Sturgeon added.
Under Section 30 of Scotland Act 1998, London must agree to another referendum before it can legally be held, but since the Scottish people voted against independence by 55 to 45 percent in 2014, the UK central government headed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson has rejected calls to give the SNP government power to hold a second vote.
In the June 2016 Brexit referendum, Scottish voters were 62 percent in favor of remaining in the European Union, a result independentists are now using to push for a second vote, claiming that the future of Scotland lies as an independent country that continues to be part of the European bloc.
An Ipsos MORI poll released in October found the highest level of support for independence yet recorded among the Scottish public, with 58 percent of the people saying that they will vote "yes" in a second referendum.
