Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has launched a public engagement exercise as part of a new drive for the country to gain independence from the United Kingdom.
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The Scottish Nationalist leader said that repeated polls since the vote had shown increased support for independence.
Sturgeon insisted the case for independence was about more than European Union membership, telling her audience: “Brexit is simply one illustration of the democratic deficit at the heart of the Westminster system”.
Speaking in Stirling University yesterday, Ms Sturgeon announced the start of the “biggest-ever political listening exercise” with the goal of speaking to two million voters before the end of November.
The results are due by St Andrew’s Day on Nov 30 – celebrating Scotland’s patron saint.
“If the SNP were really listening to the people of Scotland they would be focusing on the bread and butter issues that matter to Scots like our public services”, Scottish Labour MP James Kelly said.
She added: “We know it takes additional money and a shift in priorities, but the benefits of such a drive are obvious”.
In the most significant mass mobilisation of the party’s hugely expanded membership since September 2014, Sturgeon said each one of the SNP’s 120,000 members would be sent a pack of survey cards, and would be asked to commit to completing the survey with at least five people each month for the next three months.
The article comprised of a book extract about Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, discussed details of her miscarriage at the age of 40.
This prompted Scottish Conservative Leader Ruth Davidson to urge Sturgeon to focus on “real and present problems” like the shortfall in GP recruitment, while Labour’s Kezia Dugdale accused the Scottish National Party government of failing to use existing devolved powers to the full to prevent Westminster cuts being passed on to the Scottish people.
“Labour are talking about Scotland’s future, whilst the SNP want to drag us back to the arguments of the past”.
A Child Poverty Bill is “arguably the most important piece of legislation we will introduce this year”, Ms Sturgeon said, while there will be a new Climate Change Bill and fresh legislation on land reform after earlier measures from the government were criticised for not going far enough.
But Sturgeon took the Conservatives to task for “accidentally” taking the country out of the European Union, and said staying in the single market was a red line for Scotland.
Despite the “no” to independence in 2014, the campaign galvanized the SNP, which now has 56 of the 59 seats allocated to Scotland in the British parliament in London.
Scottish Labour fell to third in this year’s Holyrood, behind the Tories – and today’s poll suggests that the party’s support has yet to hit rock bottom.
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A dedicated website has been set up to gauge opinion on Europe, Brexit and independence while the SNP leader has also instructed all her MPs and MSPs to hold town-hall meetings on the issue. Now does that mean Scotland would automatically and inevitably vote to be independent? No. “We need to look at every aspect of the independence prospectus”.
