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Westminster Announce Intent To Block Second Scottish IndyRef
Topic Started: Mar 28 2017, 01:58 PM (21 Views)
Webster
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(The Guardian) Authorities at the Scottish parliament have disclosed all police officers will be armed with tasers when they guard and patrol Holyrood’s entrances and grounds, in a marked escalation of security.

Holyrood’s chief executive, Paul Grice, said there was no specific threat but security had been reviewed after the attack on Westminster last week.

Unlike at Westminster, police officers at Holyrood are not routinely armed. Grice told Holyrood staff, MSPs and media based there: Police Scotland has assured us that the move is an operational contingency measure and is not based on any intelligence threat in relation to the parliament or Scotland.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) MSPs resume their debate on call for second independence referendum
--MSPs in the Scottish parliament are now resuming their debate on the SNP’s call for a second independence referendum. Here is the SNP’s motion.

That the parliament acknowledges the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to their needs and therefore mandates the Scottish government to take forward discussions with the UK government on the details of an order under section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998 to ensure that the Scottish parliament can legislate for a referendum to be held that will give the people of Scotland a choice over the future direction and governance of their country at a time, and with a question and franchise, determined by the Scottish parliament, which would most appropriately be between the autumn of 2018, when there is clarity over the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, and around the point at which the UK leaves the EU in spring 2019.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Nicola Sturgeon's speech
--Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, opens the debate.

She says the debate last week was suspended after the attack at Westminster. It was a moment when they all reflected on the importance of democracy, she says. She says that is relevant to today’s debate.

She says it is important to recognise that people on the other side have sincerely-held views. The Church of Scotland said debates like this did not have to be divisive, she says.

She says she hopes to conduct this debate in a spirit of openness, honesty and understanding. She hopes others will do the same.

Sturgeon says she will not rehearse the points she made in the debate last week. But she has two points to make.

Triggering article 50 will lead to fundamental change, she says. That change should not be imposed on Scots. Scots should have the right to choose, she says.

She says, when she met Theresa May yesterday, May made it clear that by the autumn of next year the shape of the Brexit deal would be clear.

Sturgeon says she agrees that now is not the time for an independence referendum. But there should be a referendum between autumn 2018 and spring 2019. If parliament passes the motion this afternoon, she will ask for a referendum, but not in a confrontational way.

She says, although a referendum should not take place before autumn 2018, preparation needs to start in advance.

She says she will not write to May about this tomorrow, because she recognises the importance of triggering article 50.

She says, if May does not respond, she will return to the Scottish parliament after Easter to say what her next steps will be.\

**Sturgeon says, if May continues to reject call for second referendum, she will return to Scottish parliament after Easter to announce her next steps.
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(The Guardian) Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, is speaking now. She mocks the idea that Theresa May decided that the one person she could trust to reveal new details of her Brexit timetable thinking was Sturgeon yesterday.

(There is a dispute about whether or not May said anything significant to Sturgeon yesterday about the timing of Brexit. Sturgeon argues that May effectively confirmed that Sturgeon’s proposed timetable for the referendum was realistic. Downing Street disputes this.)

Davidson says last week Conservatives were told they were frightened to debate independence. They are not, she says. But they are sick of it.

She proposes the amendment in her name. As an amendment to motion S5M-04710 in the name of Nicola Sturgeon (Scotland’s Choice), leave out from “acknowledges” to end and insert “declines the Scottish government’s proposal for a referendum on independence before April 2019; believes that it would be unfair to ask this question while the process of leaving the EU is still ongoing and while the Scottish government has failed to set out its own position on independence; considers that no referendum should take place while there is no public or political consent for one, and urges the Scottish government to focus its efforts on working with the UK government to secure the best possible new relationship with the EU.”
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(The Guardioan) Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, is speaking now.

She says there are two intransigent leaders in this. Sturgeon is determined to get indpendence, she says.

Nicola Sturgeon intervenes. That is unfair, she says. She says she proposed a compromise plan that would have delivered the federal Britain that Dugdale wants.

Dugdale says that was last year. She has not heard compromise talk recently. For Sturgeon, it is independence first and last, she says. And she says the second intransigent leader is Theresa May.
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(The Guardian) In the Scottish parliament the debate on a second independence referendum is coming to an end. Murdo Fraser MSP is winding up for the Scottish Conservatives. He says the debate has been a waste of time. They have spent eight hours debating independence when they could have been debating education or health, he says.

He says Scottish Tories have deliberated for years on how to make a Conservative prime minister in London popular in Scotland.

But they were wasting their time. Now they have found out that all it takes is for a a prime minister to say no to Nicola Sturgeon.

Sturgeon thought her popularity would go up in Scotland if Theresa May snubbed her call for a second referendum. But the opposite has happened. Sturgeon is now less popular than Ruth Davidson and May, he says. He thanks Sturgeon for what she has done.
Fraser says the Scottish Greens originally proposed that there should be a second independence referendum only if 100,000 people backed the idea in a petition. Party managers changed that, because they did not like the idea, and the manifesto said 1m signatures would be required.

But now the Scottish Greens are backing the call for a second referendum just on the basis of one person’s decision.

Patrick Harvie, the co-convenor of the Scottish Greens, says Fraser is misrepresenting the manifesto and what happened.

Fraser says if this motion is approved, SNP teams will be on the streets at the weekend campaigning for independence. They will lose interest in schools and education.

The motion may get passed, but the SNP will not be speaking for the country, he says.
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--This is the poll @murdo_fraser was talking about, showing @theresa_may and @RuthDavidsonMSP with higher ratings than Nicola Sturgeon. (Stephen Daisley, 28 March 2017)
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(The Guardian) John Swinney, the deputy first minister, is winding up the debate now. He says the UK government has acted in bad faith. It has refused to engage with the Scottish government and accept any of its Brexit proposals, he says.

Swinney says Scotland is being marched “step by step to a hard Brexit and over the cliff”.

He says that approach does not reflect his values. He wants the best possible future for Scotland. And that requires independence, he says.

And that’s it. They are voting now.
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(The Guardian) They are voting first on Ruth Davidson’s amendment.

The Conservative amendment is defeated by 97 votes to 31 votes.
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(The Guardian) MSPs are now voting on the Labour amendment.

The Labour amendment is defeated by 100 votes to 28.
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(The Guardian) MSPs are now voting on the Green amendment.

The Green amendment is passed by 69 votes to 59 votes. This says 16 and 17-year-olds should be able to vote in the referendum.
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(The Guardian) MSPs are now voting on the Lib Dem amendment.

MSPs defeat the Lib Dem amendment by 100 votes to 28 votes.
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(The Guardian) MSPs are now voting on the main motion saying there should be a second referendum.

Scottish parliament backs Sturgeon's call for second referendum on independence
--MSPs have backed the motion, as amended, by 69 votes to 59 votes.
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(The Guardian) UK government signals it will delay second independence referendum until 2020s
--David Mundell, the Scottish secretary, has given an interview to the BBC that significantly hardens up the government’s opposition to a second independence referendum.

Until now Theresa May has just said that “now is not the time”. Her comments have been taken as meaning she would oppose a referendum while the Brexit talks are going on.

But Mundell has told the BBC that the government does not see the 18-month timetable (the expected timetable for the talks - because up to six months may ne needed for ratification at the end of the process) as significant.

Instead, he implied that the government would not talk to the Scottish government about a referendum until, not just Brexit, but until the transitional period was over too. That would put back a referendum until into the 2020s.
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(The Guardian) What Mundell said about how London will block Scottish independence referendum until early 2020s
--This is what David Mundell, the Scottish secretary, told the BBC.

We won’t be entering into any negotiations at all until the Brexit process is complete. Now is the time for the Scottish government to come together with the UK government, work together to get the best possible deal for the UK, and that will mean for Scotland, as we leave the EU.

The key phrase is “until the Brexit process is complete”.

Mundell was then asked if that meant until the UK had left the EU.

And this is where he significantly toughened London’s stance. He said “until the Brexit process is complete” did not just mean until the UK leaves the EU (by March 2019). He said it meant until any transitional period was over too. Given that most estimates about the likely length of a transitional period are from two to five years, that means he is ruling out talks about a second referendum until the early/mid 2020s.

And an actual referendum would take even longer to arrange, perhaps a year or more, because the process of setting one up, after talks begin between London and Edinburgh, is relatively lengthy.

This is what Mundell said in response to the question about what he meant by the Brexit process being complete.

We are not entering into negotiations on whether there should be another independence referendum during the Brexit process. We don’t have a crystal ball as to how long that process will take. We don’t recognise, for example, 18 months as being a key point in the journey. It will be a journey that will involve the negotiations with the EU, it may be a journey that involves transitional measures, it may be a journey that will involve significant implementation. It is not appropriate to have a referendum while people do not know what the future relationship between the UK and the EU is. And they won’t know that until the Brexit process is complete.
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