Independence for Scotland debate will restart in coming weeks says Scottish leader

Nicola Sturgeon First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party  has said that the debate on independence of Scotland will restart in the coming weeks. Her comments were made ahead of the publication of the report of the growth commission, set up in 2016 and due to be published next week, it will make recommendations on monetary and other policy options for an independent Scotland. 

In a television interview on Sunday she said: "Once we get some clarity, which hopefully we will in the autumn of this year, about the Brexit outcome and the future relationship between the UK and the EU then I will consider again this question of the timing of an independence referendum.

"I'm not going to say more about that in advance of that moment arising.

"But of course over the next couple of weeks we will, I suppose, restart a debate about why independence for Scotland is an opportunity and what those opportunities are.

"As you know we've had a growth commission looking at the economic opportunities of independence.

"Its report will be published in the coming days and I think that's quite an important moment, because if you think about the last couple of years in the UK it has been very much a debate about how we cope with the damage of Brexit.

"What I think Scotland now has the opportunity to do is look at how we seize the opportunities that lie ahead, so a debate based very much on ambition and hope not a debate that's based on despair, which is how the Brexit debate so often feels."