In a speech set to be given on Friday, Sturgeon will ask supporters to join in on Scotland’s “biggest ever political listening exercise”, in an effort to measure the support for a new referendum on independence.
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She said the Scottish government would be launching a website to allow people to take part in that “listening exercise”, with SNP members helping to gather the views of at least two million people.
Scotland voted by 62 per cent to 38 per cent to remain in the European Union in the June 23 Brexit referendum, putting it at odds with Britain as a whole which voted to leave.
The government will also use new powers to legislate for more women on boards of public bodies, with the First Minister saying this would “help ensure the public sector leads by example in delivering true gender equality”.
Ms Sturgeon’s speech comes almost two years on from the September 2014 referendum which saw Scots vote by 55% to 45% in favour or remaining in the UK.
“Either we can add to the turbulence and the instability … or we can now work to try and put this period of instability behind us so we can all focus on building a stronger and more stable country”.
Last month, the annual UK Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland showed that Scotland had a deficit of nearly £15 billion (€17.7 billion), due largely to the precipitous fall in tax receipts from North Sea oil.
“There can be no doubt that Brexit raises afresh the issue of independence, but there are two truths that we must never forget”, she said.
“Re-heating the referendum debate will only add a further cloud of uncertainty over Scotland’s future, just at the moment when we need a government dedicated to security and stability.”
The Scottish Conservatives have launched an online petition against a second vote, and Mr Mundell, MP for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale as well as being Scottish Secretary, is urging Ms Sturgeon to abandon her campaign.
For the Conservatives, Sturgeon said, the Government was “accidentally” triggering Brexit without a proper plan of what to do next.
May has spoken out against Scottish independence and promised to involve Scotland in negotiations on Britain’s future relationship with the EU. “The UK that existed before June 23 has fundamentally changed”, she said.
Ms Sturgeon said she had not discussed her miscarriage in public before because she did not want to be defined by it.
The offer to keep the pound at the 2014 referendum and a dependence on oil as an asset were widely seen as weak points in the independence argument last time.
Ms Sturgeon, however, believes that support for succession has increased as the consequences of Brexit are increasingly becoming clear. Well let me tell her how many of us feel.
According to a YouGov poll for The Times newspaper, out of the 1,039 Scottish adults surveyed between August 29 and 31, 54% of Scots are for country staying within the United Kingdom while 46% back independence.
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He claimed the First Minister had failed to make good on her pledge to explore all options to protect links with the European Union and that independence was the “only solution” she had offered, accusing her of having spent the summer “hyperactively bouncing around the country” in support of this.
