EDINBURGH, Scotland — Scotland’s separatist government said Thursday that it would push for a referendum on independence from the United Kingdom next year — a proposal unlikely to go far because the nationalists are outnumbered in Scotland’s parliament.
The Scottish National Party, www.snp.org, has long made breaking with Britain the focus of its political agenda, but with only 47 out of 129 seats, it lacks the parliamentary majority needed to make its plan for a referendum a reality.
Nationalist leader Alex Salmond called on opposition politicians to put the issue to the people.
“The people of Scotland must be heard and this parliament must not stand in their way. Let the people speak,” Salmond said in a speech before Holyrood, Scotland’s legislature.
Other parties showed no appetite for any such a vote. Britain’s Treasury chief Alistair Darling — a senior official in the country’s Labour Party and himself a Scot — said in Glasgow that politicians should be working on getting through the recession and getting people jobs.
“I find it strange that today some seem to think the priority is a referendum on the constitutional makeup of the U.K.,” he said.
Annabel Goldie, who leads the Scottish right-leaning Conservatives, joined Labour in its opposition to the referendum, dismissing it as “constitutional vandalism.”
Salmond vowed to secure independence from the U.K. when the Scottish National Party won control of Holyrood in 2007, but his ambitions have been complicated by the aftermath of the credit crunch. Most polls show that support for separation remains low.
However, most Scots do back the idea of having a referendum on the issue, a recent survey found.
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