Gove seeks to quash calls for Scottish independence vote

LONDON: The UK Government has ruled out a second Scottish independence referendum, as Nicola Sturgeon warned Scotland “cannot be imprisoned in the Union against its will”.

Michael Gove said the Tories would “absolutely” not hold another public vote on the matter during the course of the Parliament, regardless of how Scotland votes in the 2021 Holyrood election.But First Minister Ms Sturgeon insisted the Tories were “raging against reality” by blocking another independence vote and vowed to “pursue the plan I won a mandate for”.

The SNP increased its share of the vote and increased its number of MPs to 47, while the Tories now only have six Scottish MPs — down from 13. Despite the divide, Gove told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “We were told in 2014 that would be a choice for a generation, we are not going to have an independence referendum on Scotland.”

With the Tories having won Labour voters across the North of England and the Midlands, Gove stressed the need to deliver for its new supporters. “We need to make sure that economic opportunity is more equally spread across the country,” he said.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster also claimed the next phase of Brexit negotiations will be concluded by the end of 2020. He said: “Quite a lot of the details that we need to negotiate is already laid out in the political declaration, so a lot of work has been done.

“And as a number of people have pointed out, there are areas where the European Union’s interests and the United Kingdom’s interests are already closely aligned, so I’m confident that we will be able not just to leave the EU on January 31 but also to conclude all the details of a new relationship in short order.”

He said he would not get into “speculation” about whether the Withdrawal Agreement Bill will be brought back to the Commons before Christmas, but said it would be voted on in “relatively short order” so it can be passed by January 31.

Sturgeon, who has already made clear her desire to hold a fresh independence vote in the second half of 2020, confirmed that she will “set out this week the detailed, democratic, case for the transfer of power” to Holyrood to allow for a legal referendum to take place.

And she insisted the Tories would not be able to sustain their opposition to such a ballot.Speaking about Prime Minister Boris Johnson, she told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “If he thinks — and I said this to him on Friday night on the telephone — that saying no is the end of the matter, he is going to find himself completely and utterly wrong.

“It’s a fundamental point of democracy, you cannot hold Scotland in the Union against its will. You cannot just lock us in a cupboard and turn the key and hope that everything goes away.”