Scottish first minister to set out plans for another referendum in October 2023 as opposition leaders criticise proposal
Good morning. We’ve only just passed the six-year anniversary of the Brexit referendum – an extraordinarily divisive and epochal event that changed Britain fundamentally – and today we will get a speech putting another referendum firmly on the table. When the Scots voted to remain part of the UK eight years ago, the unionist campaign said voting no to independence was the only way to guarantee that Scotland would remain part of the EU. Two years later that promise was blown apart, even though Scotland voted decisively for remain, and ever since then the SNP has been planning actively for what social media calls IndyRef2.
In a speech to the Scottish parliament, Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, will explain how she wants to hold a vote in October next year. But with Westminster refusing to grant the permission that would make a proper independence referendum legally binding, a straight re-run of 2014 seems unlikely, and Strugeon is expected to set out instead plans for some form of alternative, perhaps consultative, referendum. Quite what this would achieve is not clear.
One view is that if Labour wins the next election, the momentum behind independence is likely to dissipate somewhat, so it’s better to strike now. Perhaps more importantly, Severin Carrell, the Guardian’s Scotland editor, argues “it will shore the SNP up ahead of the next UK general election. Even if the economics are harder than they were a decade ago, it is helpful for them to argue that Scotland’s hopes of independence are being thwarted in Westminster.”
For a sense of how powerful a force independence is even in its absence, you only need to look at the SNP’s longstanding dominance in Scotland despite its inability to achieve its ultimate aim – so far, at least. “The history of the last 15 years is that the SNP very rarely loses in these situations,” Severin said. “It rarely gets everything it wants, but it gains something else.”
It is no surprise that Nicola Sturgeon is ramping up her efforts to sow division and strife when we see the chaos in her party and the failures of her government.
She says to listen to the people of Scotland – but she refuses to herself, forging ahead with an unwanted referendum and ignoring people’s desperate cries for help with the cost of living crisis.
