苏格兰民族主义者寻求再次举行独立公投

Scotland’s first minister took a step closer Monday to breaking up the United Kingdom by announcing she intends to begin the legal process of holding a new independence referendum for Scots.

At a news conference in Edinburgh, Nicola Sturgeon said it is the "right thing” to give Scots an opportunity to express their opinion following Brexit, last year’s vote by Britain to leave the European Union. In her speech, Sturgeon, whose Scottish National Party is the largest party north of the English border, said she wasn't prepared to “do nothing” while Brexit threatened Scotland’s economy and its links with Europe.

Coming in the wake of last week’s electoral surge by Sinn Fein nationalists in Northern Ireland assembly elections, Sturgeon’s announcement, although not a surprise, adds to the ramifications of the Brexit vote, which Britain’s Conservative government is struggling to contain.

Scotland’s first minister, who heads a minority government, said she wants the vote to take place between autumn 2018 and spring 2019, arguing the British parliament in Westminster had become more assertive since the Brexit vote. She said Britain’s Conservative prime minister, Theresa May, had failed to consult Scotland before deciding on a hard break with the EU, which will see Britain not only end its political membership in the European bloc but will also see it exit Europe’s single market with major economic consequences.

In last year’s Brexit vote, Scots voted by a 62-38 percent margin to remain in the EU. After the vote, Sturgeon said Brexit constituted a “significant and a material change of the circumstances,” thereby justifying a second independence referendum. Scotland elected to remain a part of the United Kingdom in a September 2017 referendum, which was then billed by Sturgeon as a “once in a lifetime vote.”

Sturgeon will seek the authority for the independence referendum next week from Scotland’s parliament, but, the final say has to come from the Westminster parliament.

苏格兰首席部长星期一宣布，她计划为举行新的独立公投开始法律程序，这使得苏格兰离脱离英国更近一步。

在爱丁堡的一个资讯发布会上，斯特金表示，去年英国投票脱欧后，让苏格兰人有机会表达他们的意见是“正确的”。斯特金在讲话中说，英国脱欧威胁到苏格兰的经济及其与欧洲的联系，她不会“什么都不做”。斯特金领导的苏格兰民族党是英国边界以北最大的政党。

在上周北爱尔兰议会选举中新芬党民族主义者的席位激增后，斯特金做出上述宣布尽管不出意外，但仍增加了英国脱欧投票的后果。英国保守党政府正在努力控制这些后果。

身为苏格兰首席部长的斯特金领导一个少数派政府，她表示，希望在2018年秋季至2019年春季之间举行公投。她认为英国议会自从脱欧投票以来变得更加坚决。她说，英国保守党首相特雷莎·梅在决定硬性脱欧之前，没有与苏格兰进行磋商。英国将不仅结束其在欧盟的政治成员身份，还将退出欧洲的单一市场并承担其带来的重大经济后果。

在去年的脱欧投票中，苏格兰人以62-38％的票数赞成留在欧盟。表决后，斯特金表示，英国脱欧是一个“重大和实质的变化”，因此有理由举行第二次独立投票。苏格兰在2017年9月的全民投票中赞成留在英国，当时斯特金称那是一次“一生中只有一次”的投票。

斯特金下周将向苏格兰议会申请，围绕独立举行全民公决，但最后还是要由英国议会做出决定。