Scottish government announces new push for independence

LONDON (AP) — Next week the Scottish government will publish a bill laying the groundwork for a new independence referendum, the country’s leader announced Thursday – the first step toward a new vote on whether Scotland should leave the United Kingdom.

READ MORE: How Brexit may pave the way to Scottish independence

Scottish voters rejected independence in 2014 by 55 percent to 45 percent, but Britain’s June 23 vote to leave the European Union has reopened the Scotland question. By a large majority, Scots backed remaining in the EU, but they were outnumbered by a majority in England who wanted to leave.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told her pro-independence Scottish National Party on Thursday that “the Independence Referendum Bill will be published for consultation next week.”

WATCH: Scotland separation from UK ‘on the table’ after ‘Brexit’ vote

3:46 Scotland separation from UK ‘on the table’ after ‘Brexit’ vote

She said if Britain leaves the EU’s enormous single market of 500 million consumers, “Scotland will have the right to decide, afresh, if it wants to take a different path.”

“A U.K. out of the single market – isolated, inward looking, hemorrhaging jobs, investment and opportunities – will not be the same country that Scotland voted to stay part of in 2014,” Sturgeon said.

READ MORE: Brexit: Young voters didn’t want to leave EU, but will have to live with consequences

“If that’s the insecure, unstable prospect we face as part of the U.K., then no one will have the right to deny Scotland the chance to choose a better future.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "If that's the insecure, unstable prospect we face as part of the U.K., then no one will have the right to deny Scotland the chance to choose a better future."

A new Scottish referendum is not a certainty. Opinion polls suggest that there is not yet a majority in favor of independence.

Sturgeon said the British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative government must give Scotland’s Edinburgh-based Parliament “substantial additional powers,” including power over immigration, if it wanted to keep Scotland in the U.K.

She told the British government that “in 2014, you told us Scotland was an equal partner in the U.K. Well, the moment has come to prove it.”