Scotland to lobby EU on remaining in bloc

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The ties holding the United Kingdom together grew a little looser on Tuesday as First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she would take "all necessary measures" to defend Scotland's place in the European Union following last week's shocking Brexit vote.

Ms. Sturgeon told Scotland's Parliament that she was not calling a second independence referendum "at this point," but made clear that the option was top of her mind as she received a mandate to travel to Brussels and negotiate directly with EU leaders on Scotland's behalf.

Scotland's place inside both the EU and the U.K. was thrown into question by last week's U.K.-wide vote in favour of quitting the 28-country bloc, which is the world's biggest free-trade area. While the U.K. as a whole voted 52 per cent in favour of a so-called Brexit, the decision was effectively made in England, which supported leaving the EU by a substantial margin.

In Scotland, 62 per cent voted in favour of remaining in the EU, and Ms. Sturgeon said she would work to defend that choice.

"I am determined, utterly determined, to protect Scotland's relationship with – and place in – the European Union," Ms. Sturgeon said in a speech to Scotland's devolved Parliament here in Edinburgh, which has sovereignty over many domestic issues, though no influence on the U.K.'s foreign policy. Ms. Sturgeon said that if Scotland were forced to leave the EU "it would be against the will of our people. That would be democratically unacceptable."

In Brussels, Ms. Sturgeon will meet with the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, among others. While the EU was cool to the idea of Scottish independence two years ago – suggesting Edinburgh would have to quit the EU and reapply as a new member if it seceded from the U.K. – several European politicians, including a close ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have hinted this week that they see the case as fundamentally different now.

However, the office of European Council President Donald Tusk said Mr. Tusk would not meet Ms. Strugeon this week as it was not "an appropriate time."

Ms. Sturgeon lambasted the power vacuum in London, where the referendum result has thrown both the ruling Conservatives and opposition Labour into crisis. Prime Minister David Cameron has said he will resign and leave the task of negotiating Britain's exit from the EU to his successor, though the next prime minister likely won't take office until the fall.

Scotland, Ms. Sturgeon said, could not afford to wait through "three months of drift," and needed to act on its interests even while the rest of the U.K. was unsure of how to proceed.

Ms. Sturgeon, whose Scottish National Party (SNP) won a third straight election last month (though it narrowly lost its parliamentary majority), also formed a committee of experts to explore Scotland's options in the wake of the Brexit vote. Ms. Sturgeon named Anton Muscatelli, who heads Glasgow University, to chair the committee, which will also include prominent economists, diplomats, judges and scientists.

While the SNP has long fought for independence from the U.K. – the party called and lost a 2014 referendum that saw 55 per cent of Scots back continued union with England, Wales and Northern Ireland – Ms. Sturgeon said another independence vote was "not her starting point." But she made clear that she saw the Brexit vote as fundamentally altering the circumstances that the first referendum was fought on.

"The country and the constitutional settlement the people of Scotland voted for in 2014 is no longer a reality," she said, adding that many Scots had voted against independence two years ago out of fear they could lose their EU citizenship as a result.

Ms. Sturgeon suggested last week that a new independence referendum had become "highly likely" following the U.K.-wide vote to quit the EU.

Reflecting widespread worry in Scotland at the prospect of a Brexit, the motion empowering Ms. Sturgeon to negotiate directly with Brussels was supported by the opposition Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, both of which campaigned against independence in 2014.

Scottish Conservative Leader Ruth Davidson, however, stood in opposition to allowing Ms. Sturgeon to negotiate with EU leaders directly without other U.K. leaders present.

"You do not dampen the shock waves caused by one referendum by lighting the fuse for another," Ms. Davidson told Parliament. She pointed out that Scotland had far stronger trade and cultural ties with the U.K. than the rest of the EU.

But unionist voices are in decline at the moment. Green Party Leader Patrick Harvie said he believed there are now "far more people" ready to vote for an independent Scotland following the Brexit vote. Three separate opinion polls carried out following the EU referendum show support for Scottish independence spiking up several points to between 52 and 59 per cent, although enthusiasm for holding another referendum was lower.

David Torrance, an Edinburgh-based political analyst, said he believed Scotland was almost certainly headed for another referendum. "You have to go through the motions to make it look like you're not just doing this to advance your agenda. But Sturgeon clearly senses an opportunity," he said. "Anecdotally, there's clear evidence that people are angry about [Brexit] and would vote Yes [to independence] next time."

Ms. Sturgeon told Parliament that she also had begun talks with the First Minister of Gibraltar over how the two areas could work together to protect their citizens' memberships in the EU following the Leave vote. Gibraltar, a chunk of sovereign U.K. territory that shares its only land border with EU member Spain, voted 96 per cent in favour of remaining in the EU.

The Brexit vote reignited a centuries-old dispute between the U.K. and Spain over the future of the exclave and its 300,000 residents. The Spanish government called for swift negotiations with the U.K. over the future of Gibraltar.

Scottish media reported that the Scotland-Gibraltar consultations could be expanded to include Northern Ireland, which also voted to remain in the EU by a 56-per-cent to 44-per-cent margin.

Northern Ireland's future, however, is clouded by a worrisome divide between former warring factions, with most republicans supporting continued EU membership – and opposing any moves to restore a border with EU member Ireland – and many unionists voting for a Brexit.