NICOLA Sturgeon will today shun the Braveheart notion of Scottish independence, urging voters to decide the 2014 referendum not on the basis of how British or Scottish they feel but on what sort of country they want Scotland to be.
In what is being billed as a significant speech on Scotland's future, the Deputy First Minister will tell an audience of civic and business leaders in Glasgow: "My conviction that Scotland should be independent stems from the principles not of identity or nationality but democracy and social justice."
Ms Sturgeon will argue that Scotland has a democratic right to choose its own government and determine its own future as well as a right to put in place its own values and a duty to make its own decisions.
"Our referendum may be asking only one question but, in truth, Scotland faces two choices: the first is whether to bring the powers home to govern ourselves or stick with UK governance and the second is what kind of society do we want? But we don't get to make the second without the first."
Ms Sturgeon will add: "As the people of Scotland make up their minds, I ask them to base their decision not on how Scottish or British we feel but on what kind of country you want Scotland to be and how best you think that can be achieved."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article