EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND —
Scotland could hold an independence referendum in autumn 2018, just months before the United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told the BBC.
The prospect of an independence vote in Scotland that could rip apart the United Kingdom just months before an EU exit would add a tumultuous twist to Brexit with uncertain consequences for the world’s fifth largest economy.
Scotland’s threat of a second independence vote also ups the pressure on Prime Minister Theresa May as she prepares to trigger formal exit negotiations with the other 27 members of the European Union over the United Kingdom’s divorce terms.
British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street in London, Feb. 1, 2017.
A common sense time
Sturgeon said autumn 2018 would be a “common sense time” for Scotland to hold another independence referendum, once there is some outline of a deal to exit the European Union.
“Within that window, of when the outline of a UK deal becomes clear and the UK exiting the EU, I think would be common sense time for Scotland to have that choice, if that is the road we choose to go down,” Sturgeon, who heads Edinburgh’s pro-independence devolved government, told the BBC.
No decision has yet been taken on a date for a vote, she added. Under the United Kingdom’s current constitutional conventions, a second independence vote would have to be approved by May’s government, which has repeatedly argued there is no need for a second ballot.
The results of the June 23 Brexit referendum called the future of the United Kingdom into question because England and Wales voted to leave the EU but Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay.
Independence sentiment
Sturgeon has warned that the Brexit plans of the government in London — in particular May’s decision to prioritize immigration controls over continued preferential access to the single market — makes another vote on independence necessary on the grounds that circumstances have changed since 2014, when Scots voted 55-45 to stay in the United Kingdom.
Scotland has a population of around 5.3 million, according to the last census, slightly more than 8 percent of the United Kingdom’s population as a whole. It was an independent kingdom until joining England in the Act of Union in 1707.
Most polls show support for independence in Scotland has barely shifted from around 45 percent since 2014, and that most Scots do not want another vote on secession.
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