As a result, she said her programme for government “makes clear that we will consult on a draft Referendum Bill, so that it is ready for immediate introduction if we conclude that independence is the best or only way to protect Scotland’s interests”.
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The UK’s referendum vote to leave the European Union was won 52 per cent to 48 per cent – but Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in Europe.
He told party members: “In a No Borders approach we will oppose independence, we will support strong relationships with Europe and we will work for public services that can liberate people to achieve more in their lives”.
“It comes back to my message to SNP parliamentarians on Friday that we have got to make that case and win that case and that involves answering some hard questions”.
The event comes almost two years on from the September 2014 referendum, which saw Scots vote by 55% to 45% in favour or remaining in the United Kingdom.
Meanwhile, Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie warned his supporters the Tories would “always put their party before our country”. In a letter to the Scotsman newspaper, figures including former CBI Scotland head Sir Iain McMillan and former Scottish Enterprise chief executive Jack Perry, called on Nicola Sturgeon to honour the Edinburgh Agreement signed by the United Kingdom and Scottish Governments before the 2014 referendum.
Energy is being “diverted into an endless political campaign”, she said, with Ms Sturgeon’s list of legislation serving as “a warm-up act to nudge the independence caravan another few inches along the road”.
“It would allow us to take control of our own destiny”, she said.
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon listens in the debating chamber of the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood in Edinburgh, Scotland, Britain June 28, 2016.
Ms Sturgeon was deputy first minister and Scottish health secretary when she and her husband Peter Murrell, SNP chief executive, lost the baby in the early months of pregnancy in 2011.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said she chose to speak about her pain at miscarrying a baby in the hope of challenging some of the “assumptions and judgments” made about women who do not have children.
With a nod to the 38% of Scots who voted to exit the European Union in June, she said: “Whether you voted to remain in the European Union or to leave, the more fundamental question is: who decides?”
Some business leaders maintain that renewing an independence debate would “only add fresh uncertainty to Scotland’s future at a time when small and large businesses are looking for stability from all layers of government”, as a group of business leaders wrote to newspaper The Scotsman.
The programme comes on the day the Scottish Government announces 29 new or refurbished schools will open in this academic year.
“It is disappointing that, days before laying a legislative agenda before the most powerful Scottish Parliament ever, the SNP are determined to drag us back to the arguments of the past”.
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: “With the chaos of Brexit we do not need further chaos with the threat of independence”.
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May has spoken out against Scottish independence and promised to involve Scotland in negotiations on Britain’s future relationship with the EU.
