The prime minister of the autonomous region Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, promised that if she wins the May elections to renew the local Parliament, she will promote a new consultative referendum to decide whether they should become independent from the United Kingdom, despite being legally the only one who can call a popular consultation to leave the country is the British premier, Boris Johnson.
“I want to have a legal referendum, that’s what I’m going to seek in May, the authority of the Scottish people and, if they grant it to me, then what I intend to do is have a legal referendum to give the people the right to choose. That it is democracy. It is not about what I or Boris Johnson want, “said the current head of the Scottish Government in an interview with the BBC.
Sturgeon made this promise on the same day that the British newspaper Sunday Times published a poll that says 52% of Scots support independence, according to the AFP news agency.
In 2004, in the midst of a climate of maximum expectation and with a highly polarized scenario, Scotland went to the polls to define its independence from the United Kingdom.
The central argument of those who supported staying under the British crown was that a break would mean leaving the European Union, a warning that the authorities of the bloc deepened even more by assuring that an independent Scotland would take time to become a member.
The ‘No’ won at the polls, but only two years later, the country as a whole voted in favor of Brexit – in Scotland the result was the opposite – and today the United Kingdom is already completely outside the EU.
That is why Sturgeon has long been calling for a new independence referendum to decide on the future of the region, now outside the EU.
But legally the one who must call a new independence referendum is the kingdom’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, a fervent defender of Brexit who has denied this possibility time and again. (Télam)
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