Nicola Sturgeon
Alex Salmond, the previous president has predicted Nicola Sturgeon will call a second independence referendum in the autumn of 2018 after failing to keep Scotland in the EU single market.
Speaking ahead of Sunday’s second anniversary of the 2014 vote, whichhe infamously promised would not be staged again for a generation or perhaps a lifetime, the former First Minister said he expected a rerun in “roughly two years’ time.”
He predicted the British Government will not “be flexible or wise enough” to “embed” Ms Sturgeon in the Brexit negotiations so Scotland’s membership of the EU single market could be protected.
In an interview with RT UK’s Going Underground programme, he also launched an outspoken attack on Theresa May’s negotiating stance, arguing she is doing the opposite of what is required to be successful.
His intervention places more pressure on Ms Sturgeon, who has retreated from her declaration in the wake of the Brexit vote that a second referendum is “highly likely” amid a series of opinion polls showing Scots do not want a rerun and would reject independence again.
In evidence to a Holyrood committee this week, she insisted that a second referendum was not a foregone conclusion and Mike Russell, her Brexit minister, met David Davis this week to discuss how the Scottish Government’s views will be incorporated in the UK’s negotiating stance.