WESTMINSTER is “taking a wrecking ball” to the idea of the United Kingdom as a voluntary partnership of nations, the First Minister has said.
Nicola Sturgeon said that the UK Government is seeking to deny the “democratic right” of people in Scotland to choose their own future.
Sturgeon will tomorrow outline her plans for holding indyref2 to the Scottish Parliament.
She said that the case for a referendum is “now as much a Scottish democracy movement as a Scottish independence movement”.
Sturgeon said: “Westminster is taking a wrecking ball to the idea of the United Kingdom as a voluntary partnership of nations.
“A Tory Government with just six MPs from Scotland, supported on this issue by Labour, is seeking to deny the democratic right of the people of Scotland to choose their own future.
“In doing so they are demonstrating beyond doubt that, in place of a voluntary partnership, they believe the UK is instead defined by Westminster control.
“The case for a referendum is therefore now as much a Scottish democracy movement as a Scottish independence movement.”
A Section 30 order was used to give the Scottish Parliament powers to hold a referendum in 2014 – but the UK Government is set to reject any request for another.
The First Minister said that even previous Tory leaders from Margaret Thatcher to Theresa May said they believed the UK was based on the consent of the people who lived in its constituent nations.
She said: “It is time for Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer to respect, not rubbish, the wishes of the people of Scotland and their democratically elected government – and to respect the pledge their parties signed after the 2014 referendum promising that nothing prevents Scotland becoming an independent country in the future should the people of Scotland so choose.
“For 70% of the time since 1979 Scotland has been governed by a Tory government we didn’t elect. Enough is enough. It’s time to restore basic democracy in Scotland to ensure people get the governments they vote for and through independence to build a proper partnership of equals between Scotland and our friends in the rest of the United Kingdom.”
