Sturgeon has 'no intention' of taking referendum standoff to court

Nicola Sturgeon has said she has no intention of challenging the UK Government's veto on a second independence referendum in court.

 

The First Minister sparked speculation that she could mount legal action after she told an audience at Stanford University that Westminster's exclusive right to stage constitutional referendums "has never been tested in court".

 

Sturgeon has given Theresa May the duration of the Holyrood Easter recess, which ends on April 18, to agree to a referendum before she explores other options to advance the will of the Scottish Parliament.

 

But in an interview with BBC Scotland, she suggested court action will not be among them.

 

"It is absolutely essential that if the will of the Scottish Parliament is for a referendum then that should be respected," she said.

 

"I don't think there is any need, nor is there any intention, to see a matter that should be settled politically end up in the courts."

 

The SNP leader continued her US visit on Wednesday with a speech at the United Nations in New York, where she was accused of coming to the UN with a mission "to break up nations".

 

Mike Croll, director of regional operations at the UN Department of Safety and Security, said: "I’m just wondering how being a good global citizen is compatible with your desire to break a 300 year old union.

 

“This the United Nations - and your mission appears to be the breaking of nations.”

 

Sturgeon responded: "My mission is not to break anything. Scotland is a nation."

 

She also set herself apart from violent and insular nationalists in other countries, insisting an independent Scotland "can play a positive, powerful, bigger role in the world in an entirely progressive way”.

 

She said: “It is unusual, and I actually think it sets a really positive example to the world, (that) the campaign for Scottish independence, which has existed for much longer than my lifetime, has got to where it is just now, through a vigorously fought referendum campaign, without a single drop of blood being shed."

 

She added: "I am a nationalist not in the sense that is often ascribed to the word ‘nationalist’."

 

Sturgeon insisted"one of the biggest risks to Scotland’s internationalism" is Brexit.

 

Her hopes of taking an independent Scotland back into the EU were boosted on Wednesday as the European Parliament debated the UK's exit.

 

Senior German MEP Elmar Brok, a member of Angela Merkel's CDU party and former chairman of the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, said Scotland's accession to the EU could be "relatively speedy".

 

He told the BBC: "Scotland is a member of the European union and fulfils all of the conditions. There will be not many technical problems."

 

And Labour MEP David Martin, the second longest serving parliamentarian in Europe, said the UK could cease to exist after Brexit, and confirmed he has "no idea" how he would vote in a future independence referendum.