“It is, therefore, a statement of the obvious that a second referendum must be on the table, and it is on the table”, said Ms Sturgeon, who campaigned for a Remain vote.
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She has already declared her intention to “take all possible steps and explore all options to give effect to how people in Scotland voted”.
She told a news conference at her official residence on Friday: “As things stand, Scotland faces the prospect of being taken out of the European Union against our will”.
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, who has discussed the Brexit victory with Ms Sturgeon, said she stands ready to work with the First Minister “in the best interests of the people of Scotland”. He said Britain’s traditional big three parties – the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats – all argued two years ago that United Kingdom membership was the only way to keep Scotland securely within the EU. There’s even been talk of another Scottish independence referendum if that happens. “I’m a Glaswegian”, she says.
A majority of voters in both Scotland and Northern Ireland cast a vote for the U.K.to remainin the EU.
Sterling suffered one of its biggest plunges in the overnight markets, hitting lows last seen in 1985 and losing more than 10% against the USA dollar, as traders responded with panic to the prospect of the United Kingdom quitting the European Union after 43 years.
That immediately sparked calls from the Sinn Fein party, part of the power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland, to call for a vote on uniting with the Republic of Ireland. Kenny emerged saying his government’s top priority was to minimize damage to Ireland’s exports-driven economy, not to open old wounds in Northern Ireland.
Prime Minister David Cameron, who previously stated about readiness to implement the results of the referendum, regardless of its outcome, said that he will leave his office before the autumn. That campaign managed to close a sizable gap with the remain camp in the polls, which had the two sides neck-and-neck on voting day. While Sinn Fein led the Catholic minority in seeking to remain in the European Union, the top Protestant-backed party campaigned to reject it.
Sinn Fein usually is an European Union critic, but this time it backed the “remain” campaign because of the risk that Ireland’s almost invisible border could become a daily economic, social and security obstacle again. Scottish and Northern Irish nationalist politicians said it underlined just how different they were, while a Spanish official said Madrid would seek “co-sovereignty” of Gibraltar on the Spanish coast.
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McGuinness said the prospect of reintroducing security checks along Northern Ireland’s meandering 310-mile (500-kilometer) border, barely a decade after the outlawed IRA renounced violence and British security forces were withdrawn from border forts, should be avoided at all costs. I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, ‘ she said.
