SCOTLAND: SNP VOW INDEPENDENCE VOTE AFTER ELECTION WIN

Sun 09 May 2021:

The ruling Scottish National Party finished one seat short of an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament, but with the eight seats won by the Greens both pro-independence parties will have enough room to push for another independence referendum, the final election results showed on Sunday.

SNP won a majority in Scotland’s parliament on Saturday, paving the way to a high-stakes political, legal and constitutional battle with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson over the future of the United Kingdom.

With the whole 129 Constituencies counted, the SNP will sit 64 lawmakers in the new parliament, followed by the Scottish Conservatives with 31, the Scottish Labour with 22, the Scottish Greens with 8 and the Liberal Democrats with 4.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the SNP, has warned London over a second vote on independence, saying that any attempt to block it would be “picking a fight with the democratic wishes of the Scottish people.”

“The only people who can decide the future of Scotland are the Scottish people – and no Westminster politician can or should stand in the way of that,” she told Sky news.

Vow independence

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the result meant she would push ahead with plans for a second independence referendum once the COVID-19 pandemic was over, adding that it would be absurd and outrageous if Johnson were to try to ignore the democratic will of the people.

“There is simply no democratic justification whatsoever for Boris Johnson, or indeed for anyone else, seeking to block the right of the people of Scotland to choose our own future,” Sturgeon said.

“It is the will of the country,” she added after her Scottish National Party (SNP) was returned for a fourth consecutive term in office.

Scots voted to remain in the United Kingdom in a 2014 referendum but that support shrunk after a majority of the UK chose to leave the European Union two years later. Scotland voted to remain in the European Union in the 2016 referendum, but the overall UK vote was to leave.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has repeatedly said that another vote on Scottish independence would be “irresponsible” and “reckless,” congratulated Sturgeon on Saturday evening for her victory and invited her to take part in a summit meeting and to work together, his office said.

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