Scottish leader launches new independence drive

LONDON 

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has launched a public engagement exercise as part of a new drive for the country to gain independence from the U.K.

Sturgeon told members of her Scottish National Party (SNP) Friday that she was launching “the biggest listening exercise in our party’s history” to understand how a future independence referendum could be won.

She said the United Kingdom had changed since Scotland voted against independence in September 2014, particularly as a result of Brexit.

“That’s why I believe it is right that our party does now lead a new debate on independence,” she said.

“We must not assume that people's views – yes or no – are the same today as they were in 2014. Instead we must engage the arguments with a fresh eye and an open mind. And before we start talking we must listen.”

She continued: “We want to know the concerns that people have and the questions they want answered. We want to build, if we can, a consensus on the way ahead.”

Voters rejected independence by a 55-45 percent margin in the 2014 referendum, but Sturgeon believes circumstances have since changed because Scotland is being taken out of the European Union against its will.

Scottish voters strongly backed continued EU membership in the Brexit referendum this June but were outnumbered by people elsewhere in the U.K. voting to leave.

The opposition Scottish Conservative Party said a second independence referendum was “utterly unjustified and unnecessary”.

Party leader Ruth Davidson said: “Nicola Sturgeon has shown today that she is prepared to ignore the priorities of the people of Scotland, in pursuit of her own narrow nationalist agenda.

“If she was really listening, she would know that most of us don’t want to go back to another divisive referendum debate – we want Scotland to move on.”