Nicola Sturgeon promises to make election about indyref2

Nicola Sturgeon has pledged to make the snap General Election about getting voters to back her plans for a second independence referendum.

Nicola Sturgeon

The SNP leader claimed Theresa May had made a “huge political miscalculation” describing her bid

for a June 8 vote as “one of the most extraordinary U-turns in recent political history.”

Ms Sturgeon said the Prime Minister was putting the interests of the Conservatives ahead of the country’s.

She said the election would give the people of Scotland the chance to vote for indyref2.

“It will once again give people the opportunity to reject the Tories’ narrow, divisive agenda as well as reinforcing the democratic mandate which already exists for giving the people of Scotland a choice on their future,” Ms Sturgeon said.

Ms Sturgeon said Mrs May was “clearly betting” that the Tories can win a bigger majority in England given the “utter disarray” in the Labour Party.

“That makes it all the important that Scotland is protected from a Tory Party which now sees the chance of grabbing control of government for many years to come and moving the UK further to the right – forcing through a hard Brexit and imposing deeper cuts in the process.
“That means that this will be – more than ever before – an election about standing up for Scotland, in the face of a right-wing, austerity obsessed Tory government with no mandate in Scotland but which now thinks it can do whatever it wants and get away with it.
“In terms of Scotland, this move is a huge political miscalculation by the Prime Minister.”