Prime Minister of Scotland: Our independence from Britain is within reach

LONDON (Reuters) - Scotland's Prime Minister Nicolas Sturgen has said her country's independence from the United Kingdom is "within reach" and hopes to hold a new referendum next year to achieve its goal despite London's opposition.

Sturgen said in a speech Saturday in Glasgow to a crowd of separatist Scots supporters, that the early parliamentary elections scheduled to be held in Britain on 12 December next is the most important for Scotland, considering the future of the latter at stake.

The leader of the Scottish National Party has called on voters to mobilize and vote for her party in the next election, hoping to be able to get the British government to organize a new referendum on independence.

In the referendum held in Scotland before 2014 under former British Prime Minister David Cameron, about 55% of voters refused to secede from the United Kingdom, and then Cameron promised to give Scotland more powers.

The government in London opposes the holding of a second referendum in Scotland soon, and considers such a benefit to be organized only once per generation.

The nationalist leader in Scotland believes that Brexit has changed the situation in the UK, compared to when Scotland held its first referendum on secession.

Earlier, the Prime Minister of Scotland said it would ask the British government ahead of the next elections powers to enable the Scottish Parliament to call a new referendum on independence.

Sturgen hopes that if the opposition Labor Party wins the next election, its leader Jeremy Corbin will support its plan to hold a second referendum in Scotland.

But Corbin was disappointed when he said a new referendum in Scotland was neither necessary nor desirable.