Several tens of thousands of Scots demonstrated in the rain in Glasgow this Saturday, January 11, to demand a second referendum on the question of Scottish independence. The protest, the first of eight scheduled this year, comes a month after the British general election, where the Scottish National Party (SNP) led by Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon won an overwhelming majority of 48 of the 59 Scottish seats.
The demonstration, organized by "All Under One Banner", a movement created after the first referendum, gathered several thousand freelancers on the rainy streets of Glasgow. The organization estimates that 80,000 people demonstrated. Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon did not participate in the protest, but wished "Good luck to all those who walk for independence today".
The day before, Labor MP Ben Bradshaw supported the movement by declaring to be "100% certain" Scotland would choose to leave UK in second referendum, German daily says Der Tagesspiegel than "The English political class – and that includes my own party – must very quickly recognize the right to self-determination of the Scots".
Renewed interest in independence
"All Under One Banner" (AUOB), which claims to be independent from political parties, is organizing seven other events this year (Peebbles, Elgin, Edinburgh, Stirling, Kirkcaldy, Glasgow again and Arbroath next April, the month that will mark 700 years of the Scottish Declaration of Independence).
Event organizer and AUOB member Gary Kelly said he hoped for a second popular vote this year.
“After the general elections, where the SNP obtained 44% of the votes in Scotland, how many more mandates will they need? I have high hopes for a referendum on independence in the year, but I have a feeling that it could be delayed until 2021 because of the parliamentary elections. "
In the aftermath of the SNP's victory in the December 2019 elections, which largely supported it, Nicola Sturgeon asked Boris Johnson to transfer the powers allowing the Scottish Parliament to organize this second referendum, relying on section 30 of the Scotland Act of 1998, an article which had already been used to authorize the 2014 referendum and which Mrs Sturgeon had asked Theresa May again in March 2017. Boris Johnson, who is opposed to Scottish independence, however replied that 'he "Would consider carefully" Mrs. Sturgeon's request.
The referendum organized in September 2014 – authorized at the time by David Cameron – had seen the victory of "remain" (maintenance within the United Kingdom) with 55% of the votes, against 45% for the "leave". But the Brexit vote in June 2016, which obtained 52% of the votes of the British, has since favored the independence cause in a country clearly more Europhile than its English and Welsh neighbors, and which voted largely against Brexit (62%) .
