First Minister Nicola Sturgeon spoke with Johnson on Sunday for the first time since her pro-independence Scottish National Party won a plurality in Scottish parliamentary elections last week, the SNP said in a statement. Sturgeon reiterated her commitment to another vote on independence from the United Kingdom.
Scotland’s first minister told British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday that a second referendum on Scottish independence was inevitable as Johnson called for a U.K. crisis summit. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon spoke with Johnson on Sunday for the first time since her pro-independence Scottish National Party won a plurality in Scottish parliamentary elections last week, the SNP said in a statement. Sturgeon reiterated her commitment to another vote on independence from the United Kingdom “when the [COVID-19] crisis is over, and made clear that the question of a referendum is now a matter of when — not if,” a party representative said. The SNP won 64 seats in the elections, one short of a majority in Scotland’s 129-member assembly. Combined with eight members of the Scottish Greens, the pro-independence camp will lead the new parliament. Sturgeon has said the final tally indicated that a new referendum was the “will of the country” and suggested in a BBC appearance Sunday that she could introduce a referendum bill as early as next spring if the United Kingdom has recovered sufficiently from the coronavirus pandemic and its economic effects by then. The SNP has said it wants a referendum by 2023. Such a vote could sunder Scotland’s 314-year-old union with England.
