Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon formally requested London for permission to hold a second independence referendum, BBC reported.

On Thursday, the Scottish autonomy government unveiled its official position in the form of a document stating that UK decision to withdraw from the EU and the results of recent voting in Scotland give it the legal right to demand a new referendum.

"It is a fundamental democratic principle that decisions on Scotland's constitutional future should rest with the people who live here. The Scottish government has a clear democratic mandate to offer people a choice on that future in an independence referendum, and the UK government has a democratic duty to recognise that. The mandate we have to offer the Scottish people a choice over their future is, by any normal standard of democracy, unarguable," she said.

She announced that she was sending PM Boris Johnson the official position of her government along with a proposal to hold a referendum in the second half of 2020. Sturgeon added that London would almost certainly refuse.

Disputes over the second Scottish referendum flared up with renewed vigor in 2016, after the all-British referendum on EU membership. In Scotland, unlike England and Wales, the people voted against leaving the EU, and the preponderance of EU supporters turned out to be quite solid: 62% against 38%.

Nicola Sturgeon and her associates said that England and Wales were forcibly pulling Scotland out of the EU (Northern Ireland also voted against leaving: 56% versus 44%), and in these changed circumstances the Scots have every right to a second attempt.