If the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) wins the Scottish election in May, it will take the initiative for a second referendum, Sturgeon said explicitly at the SNP's AGM, after having for a long time aired strong hopes that it could take place in an undefined future.
- I will seek your mandate, and no one else's, so that a legal vote on independence can take place at an early stage of the new parliamentary year, she says, addressed to the Scots.
In the referendum held in 2014, just over 55 percent voted against Scotland breaking away from Britain.
The British government then said that the matter was settled for at least a generation ahead.
Opinion has fluctuated
In the Brexit vote two years later, 62 percent of Scots voted to stay in the EU, and since then the SNP has lobbied for a second independence vote.
According to measurements, the Scots' opinion on the issue has also fluctuated.
By law, the Scottish Regional Government must ask the British Government for permission and Prime Minister Boris Johnson has already ruled it out.
According to Sturgeon, this is a matter of legal definition.
- The inalienable right to self-determination can not, and will not, be subject to a veto by Westminster, says the SNP leader.