Prepare the vocabulary for the translation of the following article.
A second Scottish independence referendum would be
“probably unstoppable” if the UK voted to leave the European Union without the
majority of voters in Scotland also voting to leave, Scotland’s first minister,
Nicola Sturgeon, has said.
Speaking on the second day of the Scottish National party
conference in Aberdeen, the party’s leader said that if Scotland was taken out
of the EU against its “democratically expressed wishes”, it would undoubtedly
spark demand for a second referendum. “I’m not saying [a referendum would be]
automatic, but I do think that it’s highly likely,” she added.
“The issue of EU membership was central to
the referendum campaign,” Sturgeon told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday.
“The no campaign – though it was nonsense – said the only way to protect our EU
membership was to vote no.” If the majority of Scottish voters opted to stay in
the EU but the UK as a whole voted to leave, “the demand for a second
independence referendum would be probably unstoppable”, she said.
Sturgeon was also forced to defend the SNP’s record on
public spending after eight years in government in Holyrood.
She argued that figures from the Institute for Fiscal
Studies – which suggest that health spending in England increased by 6% in real
terms between 2009-10 and 2015-16 while Scottish health spending went up by
roughly 1% – “did not tell the whole story”.
“I’m familiar with the IFS figures you’re
using and they don’t take full account of our non-profit distributing capital
programme, which is what we had to introduce to compensate for the cuts to our
capital budget,” said Sturgeon.
The Scottish first minister was asked about figures from
Audit Scotland, which suggest that spending on schools in Scotland fell by 5% in
real terms from 2010 to 2013, compared with a rise in real terms south of the
border. “You are comparing apples with pears,” said Sturgeon, who pointed out
that spending per head of the population on schools and the NHS is higher in
Scotland than England.
Sturgeon repeated a claim she made in her speech to her
party’s conference in Aberdeen that while her party shared some values with the
new Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, he would not be able to unite his party.
“It may be the oldest political cliche in the
book, but divided parties don’t win elections,” she said. “And if people in
Scotland, and I’m sure it’ll be the case with people across the UK, don’t see
Jeremy Corbyn as being able to unite Labour to become a credible alternative
government then what’s the point of voting Labour?”
In her speech to the conference in Aberdeen on Thursday,
Sturgeon argued that the Scottish parliament elections in May would not be a
vote on independence. She urged those who had voted to remain part of the UK in
last September’s referendum to choose her party because it was “the best party,
with the best ideas and the best people to lead Scotland forward”.
“I, of course, respect the decision that our
country made last year,” she said. “So let me be clear: to propose another
referendum in the next parliament, without strong evidence that a significant
number of those who voted no have changed their minds, would be wrong and we
won’t do that. It would not be respecting the decision that people have made.”