Fifty-five per cent of Scots want to save the union, says latest polling
A soft Brexit could take the prospect of Scottish independence off the table in the short term. That’s according to SNP leader and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
While remaining of the view that Scotland’s ‘direction of travel’ was towards independence, she told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland today that her ambitions for independence could be ‘put aside’ in the short term, as she seeks ‘consensus and compromise’ over Brexit.
While her favoured option remains an independent Scotland being a full member of the EU, she said ‘in terms of the timetable of Brexit’, independence could be taken off the table if a soft Brexit was achieved.
Soft Brexit would mean either the UK remains in the single market, or a way is found of Scotland remaining in it as outlined in the Scottish Government’s paper published last month.
The First Minister’s comments come amid signs that the SNP are putting ambitions for independence firmly on the backburner.
Polling by BMG Research for the Herald newspaper earlier this week found that attitudes to independence remained almost the same as the final result of the 2014 referendum.
According to the poll, when don’t knows and those preferring not to respond are removed, support for an independent Scotland is at 45.5 per cent, with 54.5 per cent opposed.
It came as former SNP leader, Gordon Wilson called Nicola Sturgeon to put on hold ‘indefinitely’ any plans for a second independence vote, arguing that ‘when the facts change, so should policy’ and that the BMG poll confirmed that ‘there is no appetite for an immediate independence referendum’.
‘Indyref2’, Wilson said, ‘should be shelved indefinitely until a better case is made’.
Meanwhile, following the Fabian Society’s calls earlier this week for the Labour party to work more collaboratively with the SNP, Lib Dems and the Greens, a former Scottish government cabinet inister has called on the SNP and Labour to work to boot out the Tories.
Writing for the New Statesman’s Stagger blog, the former Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill has said:
“There is more that unites SNP and Labour than divides. Indulging in hatred simply harms both parties’ chances of removing the Tories – on both sides of the border.”
Ed Jacobs is a contributing editor to Left Foot Forward
See: ‘We have no idea what they’re thinking’ – Carwyn Jones on Tory Brexit plans
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4 Responses to “Sturgeon: ‘Soft Brexit’ could shelve second independence vote”
GodfreyR
Scotland’s single market is the UK. Exports to rest of UK are worth £48.5 billion compared with £11.6 billion to EU !!!
Mike Stallard
Mrs Sturgeon is right and Mrs May is all over the place.
A “hard Brexit” where we just pull out the plug and turn off the lights as we leave will spell disaster.
After that, people will crawl to the EU begging to return to the fold. We will be let in again – as Associate Members which will mean government from Brussels as if we were a province of an empire run by an unelected committee. Think Poland in the 1970s.
If we join EFTA and stay in the Common Market (remember Mr Wilson’s referendum?), all this will be averted. And that is what Mrs Sturgeon is trying to get through.
Peter Dow
Here are Scotland’s terms …
A soft Brexit,
£10 billion a year more borrowing powers for the Scottish government,
and before we let your Queen leave this battlefield, she must present herself before this army of Scots, put her head between her knees and kiss her own arse!
Can’t say fairer than that.
uglyfatbloke
Godfrey, I know that’s a commonly;y-used figure, but it is very, very misleading. A huge proportion of the 48Bn ‘exported to the rest of the UK’ is actually en route for the EU, US, etc.