Britain’s Supreme Court has ruled that Scotland’s government cannot unilaterally hold a second referendum on whether to secede from the United Kingdom, in a blow to independence campaigners that will be welcomed by Westminster’s pro-union establishment.But the country’s top court agreed that even a non-legally binding vote would require oversight from Westminster, given its practical implications.Sturgeon said her next step in her effort to achieve a vote will be to brand the next British general election – scheduled for January 2025 at the latest – as a proxy referendum in Scotland on which course to take.“The people of Scotland want us to be working on fixing the major challenges that we collectively face, whether that’s the economy, supporting the NHS or indeed supporting Ukraine,” he said in Parliament.Opinion polls suggest that Scots remain narrowly divided on whether to break from the UK, and that a clear consensus in either direction has yet to emerge."