Launching the second in a series of papers aimed at putting the essential case for independence to the Scottish public, the First Minister said Keir Starmer’s insistence that he would block a second referendum if Labor won the next general election amounted to “cynical politicians calculations”. “In their pursuit of votes from the Tories in England they are effectively giving Scotland two fingers,” he said. “They shouldn’t be surprised if the people of Scotland continue to take a really dim view of this – the message from Scottish Labor seems to be ‘we don’t really care about you, you’re just lobby fodder and if you’re not get ready to vote us out, your votes don’t matter.” Starmer also vowed that Labor would never do a deal with the SNP after a general election in a bid to fuel Conservative attacks on a “coalition of chaos”. Answering questions from reporters at her official residence, Bute House, in Edinburgh, Sturgeon refused to “rank” the candidates vying to replace Boris Johnson as Conservative leader, but said whoever the party chooses will be “different prime minister that Scotland does not have.” I didn’t vote.” “The change of Tory leader looks almost certain to be accompanied by a shift even further to the right. And that means, of course, a shift even further away from the mainstream of Scottish opinion and values,” he said. He envisioned “a race to the bottom on taxes, cuts to public services and support for families, more anti-Brexit, a blow to business and trade, an abandonment of the fight against climate change and a toxic – and entirely manufactured – cultural war that puts the equals. and the protection of human rights at risk.” Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Sturgeon repeated her claim that by asking the high court to rule on the legality of Holyrood’s legislation for another referendum, she was denying Westminster the opportunity to “engage in endless arguments about the process”, saying that “we know the UK government and the unionist parties are running scared from the substantive debate on independence.’ He added that the original submission to the high court made by UK government lawyers earlier this week, which urged it to reject the Scottish government’s request for a ruling on the grounds that it was premature, was evidence that the UK government Vassiliou was not even willing to make a meaningful argument about the procedure. The paper sets out the Scottish Government’s view that “independence is the only realistic way to renew Scotland’s democratic institutions”, highlighting ways in which Westminster is “eroding and curtailing Scottish democracy and undermining a devolution arrangement that is already too limited to enable Scotland to fully meet the challenges of the future.’
