Indyref2 movement should start work now, say Scottish Greens

Pro-independence campaigners should start work now ahead of a possible second vote on Scotland's future in the UK, the Greens have said.

Maggie Chapman will both speak on the issue at the Scottish Independence Convention

Green MSP Patrick Harvie has already suggested another referendum could potentially be held in 2018, at about the halfway point in the UK’s two-year-long Brexit negotiations.

Mr Harvie and fellow party co-convener Maggie Chapman will both speak on the issue at the Scottish Independence Convention (SIC) conference taking place in Glasgow today.

Speaking ahead of the event, Ms Chapman said: “As the creaking British state lurches from crisis to crisis, the need for independence becomes clearer and clearer.

“It is time to start building the independence movement again so that when the next referendum comes we are in a place to convince thousands more Scots that another, and better, Scotland is possible.”

The 2014 referendum, which saw 55 per cent of voters back staying in the UK while 45 per cent wanted to leave, was for many the “most significant event in our political lives”, Ms Chapman added.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has repeatedly made clear a second independence referendum must be “on the table” after the result of 2016’s EU referendum, which saw the UK as a whole vote to quit the EU while 62 per cent of Scots voted to remain.