Nicola Sturgeon has said she believes the people of Scotland will support independence when a second referendum is held.
Speaking to Sky News, the First Minister said that she was confident independence would win in a second vote saying: "Some polls right now do suggest that Yes would win, others that Yes is slightly behind but I am very confident that when this question is next put people in Scotland will vote Yes and one of those reasons is I've seen that all of those things I've seen that were said to Scotland by the No campaign in the referendum in 2014, not least that being independent would see us lose our European Union membership have turned out to be false. So I am confident about that."
She added: "I think it is right that the country gets to choose its future. There are big decisions to be made by governments everywhere as we emerge from the pandemic.
"Who do we want taking these decisions, democratically elected governments here in Scotland guided by the values of the Scottish people or governments like Boris Johnson's in Westminster that we don't vote for. So that is the choice and we should get to make that choice when the time is right for the country to do so."
The First Minister had also been asked in regards to timing of the vote saying that "any politician" factors in considerations about when the chance of winning is best before deciding when to hold a vote.
She insisted however that leading Scotland out of the Covid crisis was paramount and that her government aimed for a new vote to take place by the end of 2023 so long as the Covid pandemic had passed.
She said: "You made the comparison with the election. This is not just about the safety of polling stations, it's about making sure that as the country faces a big important decision about its future it's able to focus on that properly and that it doesn't have looming over that a Covid crisis.
"I'm not going to set a precise level of infections. We would want to see the Covid situation under control, the pressure on our National Health Service significantly lower than it is right now, a sense that we weren't in the acute phase of this crisis, but also crucially an overall environment in the country where people are not in their day to day lives being asked to....still limit or restrict their day to day behaviour."
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