IndyRef2: Curtice warns vote would be 'gamble' for Sturgeon
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Nicola Sturgeon has previously said she wants to hold a second referendum on Scottish independence by 2023. But Sir John Curtice said support on the SNP’s bid is split. He told RT: “My reading of those people who would vote yes in an independence referendum, most of whom who voted for SNP.
“They’re inclined to be relatively patient.
“Virtually all of them want a referendum at some point in the course of the next five years but quite a lot of them are saying, ‘so long as it’s sometime in the next five years, it doesn’t have to be this year or next year’.
“I think to that extent Nicola Sturgeon has a lot of leeway and it’s leeway she needs because where the polls are for the moment; 51 percent for no and 49 percent for yes.
“Going early is not in Nicola Sturgeon’s interest because a referendum would be an enormous gamble.”
It comes as Boris Johnson has not grasped the scale of the climate crisis and so Scotland needs to become independent, the co-leader of the Scottish Greens has said.
Lorna Slater said she wants to be in government in an independent Scotland to make the “tough decisions” that the UK Government has avoided.
The Scottish Government minister said she believed Scotland’s ability to address the climate emergency was “being strangled” by the UK Government and that she cannot “realistically talk about tackling the climate crisis” without having the powers currently reserved to Westminster.
Speaking to the PA news agency on the eve of the Scottish Greens’ conference, the party’s co-leader said “dramatic changes” are now needed because no government or country had addressed the environmental crisis.
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Having described Scottish independence as “inevitable”, Ms Slater said she believed breaking away from the UK “would lead to Scotland having a higher profile and more influence on the world stage”.
She continued: “As part of the UK, Scotland’s potential is really being strangled.
“Scotland has 25% of all the offshore renewable energy in Europe, but we don’t have the power to upgrade our own electricity grid to accommodate those renewables, we don’t have the power to lay offshore cables to export that energy.
“There are so many things we cannot do because we don’t have the powers that we could have.
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“So I don’t see how I can realistically talk about tackling the climate crisis when I don’t have the power to do all those things.”
Ms Slater, who recently became minister for green skills, circular economy, and biodiversity after a power-sharing agreement with the SNP, said the UK Government led by Mr Johnson was a “horror show”.
She added: “They talk about ‘we’ll let the free market look after the climate crisis’.
“That is washing your hands of it, that is saying ‘this isn’t our problem’ as they say with so many things.”
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