First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the new bid for an independent Scotland was the “biggest ever political listening device” and a “new debate for these new times” as she symbolically chose Stirling to launch the campaign, the city where William Wallace defeated English rule in 1297.
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Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, whose childlessness has been a matter of media speculation over the years, has revealed she suffered a miscarriage in 2011. A “listening exercise” with the goal of speaking to 2 million voters was also announced.
Ms Sturgeon, who has repeatedly hinted at a second independence vote, told activists there was “an alternative to just hoping for the best at Westminster”.
Her speech in Stirling on Friday morning took place nearly two years after the September 2014 referendum, which saw Scots vote by 55% to 45% in favour of remaining in the United Kingdom.
A spokesman said: “It was Ruth Davidson who promised that “No means we stay” in the European Union and she should be apologising for the mess her party has now created with Brexit”.
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During the ruling Conservative Party leadership contest in July, her rival Andrea Leadsom caused uproar by suggesting that being a mother meant she had a greater stake in the country’s future than May.
Sturgeon will add in her speech that there needs to be a “new debate” on Scotland’s future, which “must include an examination of independence”.
“We do not look back at the referendum on independence with much in the way of nostalgia”.
Sturgeon said that she had chosen not to discuss her heartbreaking miscarriage because it was not something she wished to be defined by. “The people of Scotland deserve to know why the First Minister is changing her tune”.
Scottish Labour Europe spokesman Lewis Macdonald said: “It is clear that remaining in the single market is vital for the economic interests of all parts of the United Kingdom as all of the devolved administrations in the United Kingdom have said”.
Nicola Sturgeon will set out the legislative programme to MSPs in Holyrood on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, a Social Security Bill will “take the first steps towards a distinctive Scottish social security system based on dignity and respect”, the First Minister said, with the SNP having already pledged to increase carer’s allowance and create a new grant for low-income parents. We want Scotland to move on.
According to a YouGov poll, Davidson has the highest net approval rating of any political leader in Scotland, and the Scottish Conservatives are the second most popular party after the SNP and ahead of Labour.
She continued: “We want to know the concerns that people have and the questions they want answered”.
She said: “Scotland will only become independent when a majority of people choose it”. I bellieve fundamentally in redistribution of resource in our country in order to equalise outcomes to a much greater extent, I believe in pooling risks and rewards, and that’s what devolution allows and independence doesn’t allow that.
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“That’s the will of the people of Scotland on both issues and it is a will my party shares”.
