ON TUESDAY of this week, the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon laid out the pathway to the next independence referendum to be held on October 19, 2023.

She said: “The people of Scotland have elected a Parliament committed to giving them a choice on independence and so that democratic will must be respected.

“In Scotland, it is the people who are and have always been sovereign – and it is the people’s will which must prevail.”

The Scottish electorate, including East Lothian, must have the right to decide its own future. There will be those who support independence and those against.

In May 2021, the Scottish Parliament elected 72 MSPs who supported independence, a combination of 64 SNP MSPs and eight Green MSPs, both of whose manifestos clearly indicated the right to hold another independence referendum. A total of 57 MSPs were elected consisting of Tory, Labour and Liberal Democrat MSPs who campaigned against the right of the people of Scotland to decide their own future.

This was the largest pro-independence majority achieved.

There is a clear mandate to hold another independence referendum – that may be an inconvenient truth for political opponents, but it is a simple and unavoidable truth nonetheless.

The UK Government is in no position to lecture any other country about the need to respect democratic norms if it is intent on trying to thwart democracy at home.

The UK is either a partnership of consent or it is not a partnership worthy of the name. Westminster rule over Scotland cannot be based on anything other than a consented, voluntary partnership.

It is time to give people the democratic choice they have voted for, and then with independence to build a more prosperous, fairer country in a true partnership of equals between Scotland and our friends in the rest of the UK.