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World

Scottish leader warns of backlash from British EU referendum, calls for vote system changes

Associated Press
Published | Updated
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    Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon addresses the audience during a policy speech at the Residence Palace in Brussels on Tuesday, June 2, 2015. This is Sturgeon's first EU address since the British elections. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo) (The Associated Press)

  • 395a1e35-
    Image 2 of 3

    Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon addresses the audience during a policy speech at the Residence Palace in Brussels on Tuesday, June 2, 2015. This is Sturgeon's first EU address since the British elections. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo) (The Associated Press)

  • 582c7a5c-
    Image 3 of 3

    Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon addresses the audience during a policy speech at the Residence Palace in Brussels on Tuesday, June 2, 2015. This is Sturgeon's first EU address since the British elections. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo) (The Associated Press)

BRUSSELS – Scotland's top politician is warning that a future United Kingdom referendum on leaving the European Union could spark a new drive for independence in pro-EU Scotland.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on Tuesday called for a "double-majority" system in the 2017 referendum that would require the support of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland before the United Kingdom could leave the EU.

Sturgeon warned in a speech in Brussels that British Prime Minister David Cameron's "in-out" referendum to be decided by a simple majority of Britons "would provoke a strong backlash."

She says "the groundswell of anger among many ordinary people in Scotland in these circumstances could produce a clamor for another independence referendum that may well be unstoppable."

Scots voted against independence in a referendum last September.