Scotland ‘will choose independence’, insists First Minister Humza Yousaf as new policy paper released
Scotland’s First Minister has insisted the Yes campaign would win “comprehensively” if a second referendum on independence was held tomorrow.
Despite several polls putting support for independence at less than 50%, Humza Yousaf made the claim as he published the latest paper from the Scottish government to make the case for leaving the UK.
The document proposes an independent Scotland would adopt a similar system for citizenship as Ireland, allowing people born elsewhere to apply to become Scottish citizens if they have a Scottish parent.
The paper also proposes that EU citizens living in Scotland or the UK before 31 December 2020 would be entitled to receive settled status in Scotland, and children born in Scotland after independence would automatically be a Scottish citizen if at least one of their parents is a Scottish, British or Irish citizen, or has settled status in Scotland.
Mr Yousaf, who described himself as a “proud Scottish Pakistani”, said the “welcoming” and “inclusive” approach being set out could attract more people to Scotland and help tackle the demographic challenge the country faces, with an increasingly elderly population and fewer people of working age.
He said: “We know that one of the biggest challenges we face is that demographic challenge, and therefore having more people of working age coming here contributing, living, studying, working in Scotland, I think is a good thing.”
He insisted: “If there was a referendum tomorrow, we would win it and win it comprehensively.
“That’s also part of the reason why of course I’m publishing these papers, because they help to make the argument, give people the information they need to make that informed decision about independence.”
He also insisted he is “confident” the Scottish government will be able to continue to publish papers in favour of independence, despite Simon Case, the cabinet secretary and head of the civil service, revealing earlier this month that civil servants north of the border could be issued with new guidance on such work within weeks.
Mr Yousaf said: “I’m confident in our position in terms of the publication of these papers.
“But I think it also speaks volumes that those who oppose independence are trying to shut down the debate instead of bringing forward their proposals for maintaining the union. They’re more obsessed with trying to shut down our case.”
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Scottish Conservative constitution spokesman Donald Cameron said: “People across Scotland will be appalled that Humza Yousaf is focusing on yet another self-indulgent paper touting independence. It is the wrong priority at the worst possible time.”
He branded the paper a “blatant misuse of public money and resources”.
Mr Cameron said: “Rather than wasting taxpayers’ money and civil servants’ time on pushing a divisive, party political agenda, a strong first minister would be concentrating on Scots’ real priorities – cost-of-living difficulties, unacceptable NHS waiting times and the ferries crisis.”
Scottish Labour constitution spokesman Neil Bibby said the latest paper comes while the “NHS is in chaos and people are struggling to make ends meet during the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades”.
He said the Scottish government is being “distracted” from dealing with these issues by its “constitutional obsession”, and said: “Humza Yousaf is completely out of touch with Scotland’s priorities and bereft of new ideas.”
But Mr Yousaf however that independence is “inherent” to tackling issues such as the cost-of-living crisis.
He said: “Because we don’t have independence, we’re suffering austerity from a Westminster government that we didn’t elect. We’re suffering from a hard Brexit that we did not vote for. We’re suffering from a cost-of-living crisis that has been imposed upon us.
“So independence actually is central to the cost-of-living crisis.”
Politics
Red Wall MPs should focus on two-child benefit cap rather than winter fuel, Harriet Harman says
Red Wall MPs should push for the two-child benefit cap to be lifted rather than a reversal of the winter fuel payment policy, Baroness Harriet Harman has said.
Baroness Harman, the former Labour Party chair, told Sky’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast that this would hand the group a “progressive win” rather than simply “protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer” over winter fuel.
Earlier this week, a number of MPs in the Red Wall – Labour’s traditional heartlands in the north of England – reposted a statement on social media in which they said the leadership’s response to the local elections had “fallen on deaf ears”.
They singled out the cut to the winter fuel allowance as an issue that was raised on the doorstep and urged the government to rethink the policy, arguing doing so “isn’t weak, it takes us to a position of strength”.
Labour’s decision to means test the policy has snatched the benefit away from millions of pensioners.
But Baroness Harman said a better target for the group could be an overhaul of George Osborne’s two-child benefit cap.
The cap, announced in 2015 as part of Lord David Cameron’s austerity measures, means while parents can claim child tax credit or Universal Credit payments for their first and second child, they can’t make claims for any further children they have.
Labour faced pressure to remove the cap in the early months of government, with ministers suggesting in February that they were considering relaxing the limit.
Baroness Harman told Beth Rigby that this could be a sensible pressure point for Red Wall MPs to target.
She said: “It could be that they have a kind of progressive win, and it might not be a bad thing to do in the context of an overall strategy on child poverty.
“Let’s see whether instead of just protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer, they can build a bridge to a new progressive set of policies.”
Jo White, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw and a member of the Red Wall group, suggested that her party’s “connection” to a core group of voters “died” with the decision to means test the winter fuel payment for pensioners.
“We need to reset the government,” she told Electoral Dysfunction. “The biggest way to do that is by tackling issues such as winter fuel payments.
“I think we should raise the thresholds so that people perhaps who are paying a higher level of tax are the only people who are exempt from getting it.”
Pic: AP
A group of MPs in the Red Wall, thought to number about 40, met on Tuesday night following the fallout of local election results in England, which saw Labour lose the Runcorn by-election and control of Doncaster Council to Reform UK.
Following the results, Sir Keir said “we must deliver that change even more quickly – we must go even further”.
Some Labour MPs believe it amounted to ignoring voters’ concerns.
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One of the MPs who was present at the meeting told Sky News there was “lots of anger at the government’s response to the results”.
“People acknowledged the winter fuel allowance was the main issue for us on the doorstep,” they said.
“There is a lack of vision from this government.”
Another added: “Everyone was furious.”
Downing Street has ruled out a U-turn on means testing the winter fuel payment, following newspaper reports earlier this week that one might be on the cards.
A man from the US state of Virginia will spend over three decades behind bars after being convicted of sending crypto to the terrorist organization commonly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Federal Judge David Novak sentenced Mohammed Azharuddin Chhipa to 30 years and four months in prison on May 7 for sending over $185,000 to the Islamic State, the Department of Justice said on May 8.
Prosecutors said that from around October 2019 until October 2022, the 35-year-old Chhipa collected and sent money to female Islamic State members in Syria, which helped them escape prison camps and funded fighting.
The Justice Department said Chhipa would raise funds for the United Nations-designated terror organization through social media — receiving money online, or traveling hundreds of miles to accept donations in person.
He’d convert the money into crypto and send it to Turkey for it to be smuggled to Islamic State members across the border in Syria, prosecutors said.
A federal jury convicted Chhipa in December, finding him guilty on a charge of conspiracy to provide support to a terrorist organization and four charges of providing and attempting to provide support to a terrorist organization.
“This defendant directly financed ISIS in its efforts to commit vile terrorist atrocities against innocent citizens in America and abroad,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “This severe sentence illustrates that if you fund terrorism, we will prosecute you and put you behind bars for decades.”
Chhipa tried to flee US during FBI probe
Prosecutors said that during the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigation into Chhipa, he tried to flee the country to escape prosecution and tried to hide his tracks through a series of actions seemingly aimed at confusing authorities.
According to a motion for detention filed in August, FBI agents searched Chhipa’s house on Aug. 2, 2019, and that night Chhipa drove to a bank, withdrew $1,800 from an ATM, and then went to a Taco Bell, where he paid a stranger for a ride to a relative’s house. The relative then drove him to a grocery store.
Related: US Treasury sanctions Myanmar militia group for alleged crypto scams
Three days later, prosecutors said Chhipa “purchased a series of bus tickets using variations and/or misspelling of his name and recently created email accounts.”
He then travelled from Virginia to Mexico and onto Guatemala. He then bought tickets to fly from Guatemala to Panama, then onto Germany, and then to Egypt, but an Interpol Blue Notice was issued, and he was returned to the US.
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