Sturgeon postpones Scotland's 2nd independence vote until after Brexit

PanARMENIAN.Net - Scotland's secessionist leader on Tuesday, June 27 postponed plans for a second independence referendum until the terms of Britain's exit from the European Union are clear, Reuters says.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she was putting on hold plans to introduce legislation that would have demanded a second referendum.

Sturgeon, whose Scottish National Party wants to break Scotland's 300-year-old union with England, had been seeking a referendum in late 2018 or early 2019, ahead of Britain's EU exit which is due in March 2019.

"We will not seek to introduce the legislation for an independence referendum immediately," Sturgeon told the Scottish parliament. "The Scottish government will reset the plan I set out."

She later told the BBC she believed that meant another secession vote, if it took place, would most likely be before 2021 when the current Scottish legislative term ends.

"I do think that we are talking potentially within this parliament, but I don't want to make that judgment now."

Sturgeon's party lost 21 of its 56 seats in the United Kingdom's parliament at Westminster in the June 8 election. In the days after the election she acknowledged that her insistence on a second independence referendum had lost the SNP votes.