The United Kingdom’s top court has ruled the Scottish government cannot hold a second referendum on independence next year without approval from the British parliament, dealing a blow to nationalists’ hopes of holding a vote in 2023.
In 2014, Scots rejected ending the more than 300-year-old union with England by 55 percent to 45 percent, but independence campaigners have argued the vote two years later for Britain to leave the European Union, which the majority of Scottish voters opposed, has materially changed the circumstances.
