Scottish leader says she will push for a second independence referendum

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LONDON – Scottish leaders who overwhelmingly supported Britain’s membership in the European Union warned Friday of possible renewed bids for independence after British voters turned their backs on the 28-nation bloc.

Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party, said a second referendum on Scotland’s membership in the United Kingdom was a possibility in the immediate future.

“We will begin to prepare the legislation that would be required to enable a new independence referendum to take place if and when Parliament decides,” she told reporters in Edinburgh.

Just two years ago, pro-EU Scottish voters rejected independence and opted to remain united with England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

In that earlier vote, the separatist campaign could not successfully demonstrate that a newly independent Scotland would automatically earn EU membership: For Scottish Europhiles, the safest option in the September 2014 referendum was to remain in the U.K.

But Britain’s rejection of the European Union has outraged millions in Scotland as well as in Northern Ireland, pointing to the internal pressures that the U.K. faces as it looks toward the difficult process of breaking with its European partners.

If “Brexit” will redefine the relationship of Britain with continental Europe, it could also significantly alter the borders of the United Kingdom itself.

Passport control checks and physical barriers could soon be installed between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, the only portion of the U.K. that will now share a land border with an EU member state.

In Thursday’s vote, 56 percent of voters supported the “Remain” camp in Northern Ireland, where significant EU investment has meant a new chapter of prosperity for a region that has not forgotten decades of sectarian violence.

Sinn Fein, the Irish nationalist party dedicated to ending British jurisdiction over Northern Ireland, immediately announced that the Brexit results justified a united Ireland.

“English votes have overturned the democratic will of Northern Ireland,” Declan Kearney, Sinn Fein’s national chairman, said in a statement Friday morning.

“This British government has forfeited any mandate to represent the economic or political interests of people in Northern Ireland.”

Likewise, 62 percent of Scottish voters sided with the pro-EU “remain” camp, compared to just 47 percent in England.

“I am proud of Scotland and how we voted yesterday,” Sturgeon said. “We proved that we are a modern, outward-looking and inclusive country, and we said clearly that we do not want to leave the European Union.”

“Decisions have consequences,” Fiona Hyslop, Scotland’s external affairs minister, told reporters. “If the United Kingdom has made a decision against the interests of the Scottish people, that will have consequences.”

In Wales, where 52 percent of voters backed Brexit, despite the billions of euros the region has received from Brussels in structural funding, First Minister Carwyn Jones was quick to express displeasure with the vote.

In a statement, Jones said the referendum was grounds for an entire reworking of the political relationships among Britain’s devolved capitals, putting the country onto “entirely different footing.”

The details of a second Scottish referendum remain unclear, as do the details of a newly independent Scotland’s accession to the EU.

Nicola Sturgeon declined to comment, and the Scottish National Party declined to elaborate on her Friday morning speech.

(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท James McAuley

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