Scotland defies Liz Truss with a new independence referendum attempt for 2023

Scotland has launched a new challenge to UK and has called into question its national unity at a time of change with the arrival of Liz Truss to Downing Street and Carlos III to the throne.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon showed her confidence last Sunday about a second referendum on Scottish independence so that it can be held on October 19, 2023.

The supreme court of the United Kingdom will begin this Tuesday to listen to the arguments to validate the secession referendum without the approval of British Prime Minister Liz Truss and his government.

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This vote would be the second in less than a decade. In 2014The scots they rejected independence by 55%-45%. This plebiscite was previously approved by the government of David Cameron.

However the Scottish National Party (SNP) has argued that Britain’s vote to leave the European Union changed the rules of the game.

Sturgeon’s Optimism

“Yes, I am confident that it can happen,” the Scottish leader said in a recent interview with the BBC when asked if a possible consultation to separate from the United Kingdom. “We are going to wait and see what the court says. I am sure that Scotland is going to be independent,” she added.

“It makes no sense to speculate about the outcome of the judicial process, but if it is favorable, we have everything ready to legislate”, he assured.

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Sturgeon has promised that a defeat in the Supreme Court will bring the SNP to stand in the next UK election (scheduled for 2024) as a single platform in order to seek the independence of Scotland. In this way, would turn these elections into a “de facto” referendum.

However, the prime minister confessed that this would be a last resort. “That is not my preference,” he said last Sunday at his party’s national conference in Aberdeen.

“If the way by which it would be correct to consider and decide this question, which is a legal constitutional referendum, is blocked… the choice is simple, we present our project to the people in a (general) election or we renounce Scottish democracySturgeon asserted.

The SNP leader also urged the Executive of Liz Truss to accept her request to hold the plebiscite. Furthermore, Sturgeon opined that the Prime Minister would do so without hesitation “if she were convinced of her position” that the majority of Scots prefer stay in the UK.

Pressure for Truss

Several government ministers called on Conservative MPs on Sunday to unite around Liz Truss after the SNP’s annual congress in which they presented numerous disagreements and divisions with the British executive.

The Minister of the Interior, Suella Braverman; Environment, Ranil Jayawardena; the person in charge of Equality, Nadhim Zahawi; and the leader in the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, have published several articles about this situation to defend the country’s sovereignty.

This reaction from some ministers comes with a conservative government in free fall, Sturgeon he fears this will be his last chance before a new replacement arrives Downing Street that would make the path of independence more difficult. The Labor Party has in fact regained much of the lost ground in Scotland and is already at 30% in the polls, against 45% for the SNP.

Sturgeon continues to have a good reputation among most Scots since coming to power in 2014 as Alex Salmond’s successor. Although her assessment deteriorated due to a scandal of alleged sexual harassment in her government.

His reputation has suffered again in recent days due to the controversy over the gender identity law. Even the writer J K Rowling posted a photo of herself on social media wearing a T-shirt that read “Nicola Sturgeon, destroyer of women’s rights.”