LONDON – Scotland’s first minister, Alex Salmond, ruled out an early vote on Scottish independence yesterday despite an opinion poll showing rising support for the move and calls from political opponents to do so.
In May, Mr Salmond’s pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) won a majority in the country’s devolved parliament and pledged to hold a referendum on independence within five years.
According to a UK-wide poll published in the Independent on Sunday,39 per cent of respondents said they thought Scotland should be an independent country, compared with 38 per cent who disagreed.
In Scotland itself, support for the SNP’s plans have surged with 49 per cent backing independence and 37 per cent opposed, the paper said. A poll in May had support for independence in Scotland running at just 29 per cent.
All Britain’s major political parties are opposed to the break-up of the union. Prime minister David Cameron called on Mr Salmond to hold an early referendum earlier this month, accusing him of trying to create an unstable relationship between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
However Mr Salmond, in an unprecedented position of power after his SNP became the first party to win a majority since Scotland got a devolved parliament in 1999, rejected an early poll.
“I made it clear we would hold a referendum in the second half of the parliamentary term,” he told Sky News. “That’s what we said we would do and that’s what we intend to do and no amount of blustering from the prime minister is going to change that view.”
The current Scottish parliament controls health, education and prisons. Scotland also has its own legal system.
The bulk of its funding comes from a £30 billion grant from the British central government, but Mr Salmond has said an independent Scotland would be entitled to the lion’s share of North Sea oil revenues.
“We had generations of being ordered about from Westminster,” he said. “That’s gone now.”