NICOLA Sturgeon could be set to announce a second referendum on Scottish independence within months.
Speaking in Brussels yesterday, after meeting with the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, the First Minister insisted the UK government’s chaos over European negotiations hadn’t dented her indyref2 timetable.
In a public question and answer session with Politico, Sturgeon said she is still seeking tell the country her “view on what the correct thing is to do at that stage” in the autumn when the Prime Minister is due to deliver “a fairly detailed political statement about the future relationship” of the UK and the EU.
The First Minister also made clear she still had a mandate to call for another vote.
“I stood on a manifesto in 2016 and was elected on a manifesto that had the prospect of a second referendum in the context of Brexit. So, the Scottish Government has a mandate for that.”
The SNP leader also moved to put some distance between her party and the Andrew Wilson’s Sustainable Growth Commission report, describing it as “a set of recommendations at the moment” rather than policy.
“It was an SNP commissioned report, it will now go into a process of decision and deliberation within the SNP.”
She added: “My party has to make its own mind up on the recommendations of the growth commission.”
The report’s recommendation on currency has proved to be one of its most controversial proposals.
It recommends an independent Scotland retaining sterling, and then, following a transition period, possibly look to set up its own currency.
Sturgeon said retaining the pound post-independence would not leave Scotland “in the same position as Panama” – where the US dollar is legal tender.
She stated: “If Scotland was to use the pound outwith a currency union, even for a transitionary period, I don’t think it puts us in the same position as Panama for example.
“The term sterlingisation that is often used is when a country chooses to use a currency that is not its own.
“The pound is Scotland’s currency right now, the pound as everybody knows is a fully tradeable international currency.
“There is absolutely nothing to stop Scotland using the pound and it would be a continuation of what we do right now.
“Of course the recommendation that was set out in the report was to use the pound but also to take steps including the establishment of a Scottish Central Bank, that would prepare the way for a move to a Scottish currency if that was considered to be the right option.”
In the last referendum, Alex Salmond argued Scotland would be able to use the pound in a formal currency union with the rest of the UK – an idea which was immediately rejected by all the unionist parties.
Last week Bank of England governor Mark Carney told the MPs on the Treasury Select Committee such an arrangement would be possible.
In the interview, the First Minister also cautioned Theresa May from listening to the “Mad Brexiteers” who are trying to force the UK out of the customs union and single market.
The SNP leader said the “only credible and sustainable” option for the UK after Brexit was to remain in the customs union and single market.
“I was very clear with Michel Barnier this morning that I wanted to see not just Scotland but the UK as a whole remaining within the single market, that’s the position the Scottish Government has taken all along.”
She added: “In my very, very strong view it is in the interest of the whole of the UK to stay in the customs union, [the UK Government] would be cutting off their nose to spite their face if they turned their back on that .”
But, she added, the Government wasn’t “really listening to anybody except the mad Brexiteers,” naming Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Environment Secretary Michael Gove and leader of the Tory European research group, Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Sturgeon also warned that if Northern Ireland was able to, in effect, remain in the customs union, then it would leave Scotland with a “competitive disadvantage”.
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