UK’s call for early polls is a ‘huge miscalculation’, Nicola Sturgeon says
Edinburgh — The decision by British Prime Minister Theresa May to call an early election on June 8 gives Scotland a chance to reinforce its democratic mandate to hold an independence referendum, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon suggested on Tuesday. May unexpectedly announced the early election in a statement outside her Downing Street office in London, earlier on Tuesday. "In terms of Scotland, this move is a huge political miscalculation by the prime minister," Sturgeon, whose Scottish National Party (SNP) is seeking a referendum on independence from the UK, said in a statement. "It will once again give people the opportunity to reject the [Conservative government’s] narrow, divisive agenda, as well as reinforcing the democratic mandate, which already exists for giving the people of Scotland a choice on their future," she said. Scots voted by a 10-point margin in 2014 to stay part of the UK, but Sturgeon’s party wants a new referendum within the next two years, arguing that...
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