'Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon to seek second independence referendum'
"LONDON — Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon defiantly and unexpectedly announced Monday that she will seek a new independence referendum, forcing British leaders to try to prevent their country from ripping apart even as they negotiate a high-wire divorce from the European Union.
With Britain poised to trigger the start of its E.U. departure by month’s end, Sturgeon said she will push for a vote on Scottish independence in autumn 2018 or spring 2019 — likely just before the United Kingdom leaves the union.
The move, Sturgeon said, will allow pro-E.U. Scots to decide whether “to follow the U.K. to a hard Brexit or to become an independent country.”
“It will be Scotland’s choice,” she said in an announcement that caught Britain’s political world, including the government, off guard. “And I trust the people to make that choice.”
But the new plebiscite — to be held no more than 4½ years after Scots voted down an earlier referendum that was supposedly a “once-in-a-generation” decision — instantly deepens Britain’s already considerable identity crisis." WP
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