Pro-EU Scots, Northern Irish eye UK escape after Brexit vote

“I want to make it absolutely clear today that I intend to take all possible steps and explore all options to give effect to how people in Scotland voted”.

A second Scottish independence referendum is “highly likely”, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said on Friday, raising the prospect that the United Kingdom could tear itself apart after voting to leave the European Union.

Mr Obama said: “The people of the United Kingdom have spoken, and we respect their decision”.

While not calling for a referendum outright, the Ms Sturgeon said that the Scottish Parliament would begin preparing legislation for a second vote and indicated that it was “highly likely” that Parliament would back plans for a fresh plebiscite.

The sharp disconnect has revived the idea of Scotland declaring its independence from the United Kingdom – and of Northern Ireland leaving to merge with the independent Republic of Ireland, which is an European Union member.

“Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party was elected on a platform that vowed, in part, to revisit the independence issue – last decided in a failed 2014 referendum – should the country be taken out of the European Union against our will, Sturgeon said”.

Ms Sturgeon said she will establish an advisory panel with experts to advise her on legal, financial and diplomatic matters as she seeks to continue Scotland’s membership. That has led to criticism of Corbyn from some of the party’s lawmakers and prompted two of them to call for a vote of no confidence in the leader, which is due to be discussed early next week.

“The 1.6 million votes cast in this (EU) referendum in favour of “remain” do not wipe away the 2 million votes that we cast less than two years ago (to stay in the UK)”, she said.

Meanwhile, nationalist leaders in Northern Ireland have strengthened calls for the nation to leave the U.K. and unite with their southern neighbor, the Republic of Ireland.

Sturgeon would have to build a robust economic independence strategy to convince those who in 2014 were emotionally inclined to leave the United Kingdom but voted to stay in because of the economics.

In Thursday’s vote, 56 percent of voters supported the “Remain” camp in Northern Ireland, where significant European Union investment has meant a new chapter of prosperity for a region that has not forgotten decades of sectarian violence.

“We now have a situation where Brexit has become a further cost of partition”, Declan Kearney, Sinn Fein’s national chairman and a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, said in a statement.

In Ireland, that hypothetical vote is called a “border poll”.

You might remember that Scotland held a referendum on independence from the U.K.in 2014.

“I think people will be looking very closely at this result and looking at the prospects for Scotland and what is in the best interests of Scotland going forward. It is crucial that London has a voice at the table during those renegotiations, alongside Scotland and Northern Ireland”.