Scotland first minister pushes Labour to oust May government

Scotland's first minister and leader of the anti-Brexit and pro-independence Scottish National Party on Tuesday put pressure on the official opposition in the UK to lodge a motion of no confidence against Britain's embattled conservative Prime Minister Theresa May.

Speaking to the BBC's flagship Today programme, Nicola Sturgeon said May's Conservative government was no longer functioning and her decision to delay a parliamentary vote on her Brexit deal last minute due to the likeliness it would have been rejected by lawmakers was an opportune moment for Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to table a confidence motion.

"It's a government that's ceased to govern," Sturgeon said. "It's not functioning any longer, so it can't go on and I think it is incumbent now on the official opposition to lodge a motion of no confidence. I signalled yesterday that the SNP would support that," she was cited as saying by Efe news.

The SNP, which has 35 Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, the lower chamber of UK Parliament, has vociferously called for a second Brexit referendum.

Sturgeon said Corbyn seemed reluctant to back that initiative.

Labour's senior ministers so far declined to throw their weight behind a people's vote, instead suggesting the centre-left party could negotiate a better deal with the European Union, although several of its backbenchers were in favour.

"Labour can speak for themselves, but as I understand it, they don't think the time is right for a motion of confidence," the leader of Scotland's devolved government said.

"For goodness sake, if the time is not right now, then when will the time be right? The clock is ticking, time is running out," she said.

Some 52 per cent of UK voters opted to the leave the EU in the 2016 referendum, but 62 per cent of Scottish voters chose to remain.

The whole of the UK is due to leave the EU on March 29, 2019.

--IANS

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