Thousands march in Glasgow to demand Scottish independence from Britain
Thousands of people have joined a mass rally in the Scottish city of Glasgow in support of independence from the United Kingdom.
The march on Saturday came several days after the head of the devolved government in Scotland, first minister Nicola Sturgeon, said the country should hold a fresh independence referendum in light of Britain's struggle to leave the European Union.
The rally, dubbed All Under One Banner, saw thousands of people from various neighborhoods of the city marching toward the Glasgow Green in the city’s central district.
Organizers put the number of attendees in the rally at tens of thousands, saying a similar march last year had attracted at least 35,000 people.
The march is the beginning of a series of similar actions which will culminate in a huge demonstration on October 5 in the Scottish capital Edinburgh.
During the rally, the protesters carried Scottish and EU flags, a sign they are still unhappy with the results of a UK-wide referendum in June 2016 in which some 52 percent of the people voted to leave the EU.
Despite rejecting independence from the UK in a referendum in 2014, Scottish voters were mostly opposed to a separation from the EU during the Brexit referendum. That comes as the region has been relying for decades on exporting its agricultural and fishing products to EU countries.
In a speech to the Scottish parliament, known as the Holyrood, late last month, Sturgeon said she and her Scottish National Party would introduce legislation in the current term of Holyrood to hold a fresh referendum on independence.
London has fiercely resisted calls for a new independence referendum, saying the 2014 vote should have settled the issue for a generation.
A failure to leave the EU at the end of March and then in early April has caused separatist sentiments to surge in all UK territories other than England.
Politicians and activists in Northern Ireland and in Wales have warned that Brexit could pose risks to the well-being of people in those regions, saying London should consider their calls for secession.
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