ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now two years ago Nicola Sturgeon was campaigning for Scottish independence of course and now she is desperately trying to keep the UK inside the European Union and if the latest polls are to be believed it might be working, with the Remain camp edging ahead to a three point lead in a survey carried out after the killing of the Labour MP, Jo Cox.  Scotland’s First Minister joins me now from Glasgow, a very good morning to you Ms Sturgeon.  Your thoughts on Jo Cox, an MP killed whilst doing something any good representative of the people should be doing?

NICOLA STURGEON: Absolutely.  My feelings I think are exactly the same of those of everybody else across the country. Two days on I still feel stunned and just overwhelmingly sad about what happened to Jo.  I didn’t know her personally but absolutely everything I’ve read about her and heard about her since Thursday makes me wish desperately that I had known her.  She appears to have been everything that you would want an elected representative to be: passionate and committed, somebody driven by belief and conviction, hugely energetic and very accessible to the public, which we all try to be and that accessibility of course is one of the hallmarks of our democracy and something we must not allow to be undermined.  But above all else and more important than all of that, Jo was a mum of two young children and I am not the only one, far from being the only one, whose heart just breaks every time I think of those kids just now and I suppose the comfort is knowing that they’ll grow up knowing just what a wonderful person their mother was and how proud of her they should be and everybody else should be of her.

DM: Do you think part of her legacy should be, you talked didn’t you about a new beginning for our politics flowing from this, could you just expand on that?  

NICOLA STURGEON: Well I know how I feel personally and have felt personally these last couple of days.  As a politician I feel inspired by her example to rededicate myself to politics and public service as a force for good.  All too often people vilify and criticise politicians and much of that is perfectly legitimate.  We are public servants, we’re there to be held to account and that’s right and proper but we are also, in the overwhelming majority of cases, people who come into politics for the right reasons.  If it isn’t too much of a cliché, we come into politics because in our different ways we want to make the world a better place and I think I will not be alone in wanting to rededicate myself to that but I also hope that part of Jo’s legacy will be a political discourse that is perhaps less vitriolic, less cruel and less harsh.  I don't think from what I know or have learned about her, read about her, I don't think she would want us to become less passionate in how we debate politics but perhaps she would want us to be more respectful and recognise that our political opponents are by and large just that, opponents with a different view of how we make the world  a better place, not enemies who are badly motivated and if that can lead to a more respectful discourse then that will be one aspect of what I am sure will be a huge and very positive legacy of Jo Cox.

DM: Let me ask you about the upcoming vote we are all aware of on the UK’s place inside or outside the European Union.  You talked, didn’t you, last week about putting contingency plans in place for Scotland, what are they?

NICOLA STURGEON: Well I think you would expect me as First Minister of Scotland to be looking at all eventualities and making sure we are planning for those eventualities.  I said and I say again today what I’ve said a million times, if Scotland votes to stay in the European Union and what I am about to say is predicated on Scotland voting to stay in although I don’t take that for granted,  but if we then face the prospect of being taken out of the EU against our will then of course we would have to look at all options to protect our relationship with the European Union and give respect to how the Scottish people have voted.  Our manifesto for the Scottish elections that we fought the election on just last month said that one option that the Scottish parliament should have the right to consider is another independence referendum.  So I’m not saying anything there that I’ve not said a million times before but I will also say again today, and I’ve said this often before too, I hope this scenario doesn’t arise.  I fervently and passionately hope that people right across the UK and in every part of the UK vote to remain in the European Union and not just because I think that will be better for our economy, for jobs and trade although staying part of the world’s biggest single market will certainly be all of that but it is also I think a big and a fundamental decision about the kind of world we want to part of.  I want to be living in a country, part of a world where independent nations choose to work together, where we’re open and outward looking and inclusive.  I think a vote to leave the EU would be a vote to leave the EU would be closed and inward looking and I don't think that’s right for the UK or any part of the UK.

DM: But if it is a vote to leave and whether Scotland votes overall in or out, then negotiations have to start.  Would your feeling be that it couldn’t just be UK representatives, UK officials doing that because there are now so many devolved powers that the Scottish parliament has that there would have to be Scottish officials, specifically Scottish officials, negotiating on some of those details?

NICOLA STURGEON: Absolutely, Scotland’s voice would have to be heard and heard directly, in those circumstances I am very clear about that.  But you know in a very strong sense these are discussions for after Thursday and I hope they are discussions that don’t have to happen because I’ll go back to the central point, and we are still a few days away from polling day, I think it is really important that those of us who want to see a remain vote, those of us who want to see the UK and all of the nations in the UK stay part of Europe, stay part of the world, stay outward looking and open and inclusive, make that case and that’s what I’ll be doing over these next few days and I very much hope that what we see on Thursday is a strong vote for Remain not just in Scotland but in England, Wales, Northern Ireland as well.  

DM: And where will you be doing that campaigning, Ms Sturgeon?  As you no doubt know you are pretty popular south of the border as well, are you going to be making any forays south in the next few days?  

NICOLA STURGEON: I’ve been south of the border in the last couple of weeks, as you may know I took part in a debate UK wide and was in London at the end of last week.  I don’t plan to be south of the border for the remainder of the campaign, I’ll be campaigning in Scotland this week and I’ll be very strongly making the case that people in Scotland should vote to remain and I hope that message will be one that’s relevant to and will resonate with people right across the UK.  I think there are – and I would say to people, you don’t have to believe everything that David Cameron or the UK Treasury says here, as First Minister I look at the evidence, my judgement is that economically, socially, culturally we are better off remaining as part of the EU.  We live in a world that is increasingly interdependent, I’m a nationalist, I want Scotland to be independent but I believe with everything we’ve got that in the world we live in, independent countries must reach out and work together.  I don’t want the UK to be inward looking and to close itself off and the other point I would make is that in these last few days I hope we can have a debate that doesn’t focus on immigration.  Yes, people’s concerns on immigration need to be addressed but let’s also make the positive case for a world and a Europe where we all have the freedom of travel and the positive case for immigration and the benefits that bring to our economy.  I would say on that point that the poster that Nigel Farage unveiled last week was vile and racist and I know you are going to be speaking to him later on and I hope he does agree today to withdraw that poster because that kind of sentiment has no place in a civilised debate.  

DM: So you want me to tell him it’s vile and racist in your opinion.  Was it not though touching on people’s concerns about the overall number of people who come through the EU who might make their way to the UK?   

NICOLA STURGEON: Let me be clear, I don’t take the view that people who have got concerns about immigration are racist, that’s not what I’m saying. I do think that Nigel Farage’s poster was racist but my argument about immigration is that people have concerns about the impact of immigration and I am sitting here in Glasgow, actually in my own constituency and a couple of miles from here is a part of my constituency where there is a real impact from recent Eastern European immigration but my argument is let’s deal with the impact, let’s invest in housing, in public services rather than blame immigrants or take a view that we should somehow close our borders.  Inward migration is good for our economy, you hear the Leave campaign saying we have got record levels of inward migration but we’ve also got record high levels of employment across the UK right now, economies that are open and welcome and inclusive are generally speaking more successful than those that close themselves off …

DM: So with no limits, First Minister?   

NICOLA STURGEON: Well it’s not the case that we don’t have controls on immigration, some of those controls I think lead to cases like one we’ve got in Scotland just now where a couple and their child from Australia came here under the post-study work visa rules with an expectation of being able to stay, those rules were changed and now they face the prospect of having to leave, they’ve got a massive contribution to make.  The point I’m making is let’s have a balanced and proper debate about immigration and not one in which people’s legitimate concerns are exploited in a way that is designed to encourage people to turn inwards, that’s what the Leave leadership I think have been doing and I think it is deeply regrettable.  

DM: Lastly, if I were an SNP voter living in Scotland, listening to what you’ve said, Ms Sturgeon, wouldn’t some of them be drawing the conclusion, given what you’ve said about Scotland’s relationship with the European Union, wouldn’t some of them draw the conclusion that on Thursday it would be best perhaps to vote no or to abstain because then you would get a step closer perhaps to another independence referendum?

NICOLA STURGEON: No, there’s no logic to that at all.  My vote to remain on Thursday will not be driven by considerations about what it means for an independent Scotland.  You know I believe in an independent Scotland but my vote for remain will be about many other reasons.  But what I’m saying to people who perhaps support independence, who are considering a vote on Thursday based on what they think it means for Scottish independence, if Scotland votes Leave then that premise for independence isn’t there.  If Scotland votes to remain and faces being taken out of Europe against our will then yes, I think the option of a second independence referendum has to be on the table for consideration but that argument is not there if Scotland also votes to leave.  If Scotland votes to leave and there is a leave vote across the whole of the UK then our immediate future is Scotland in the UK, out of Europe, facing a UK government led by the likes of Boris Johnson that if it is possible to believe this would be even more right wing than that led by David Cameron and George Osborne.  That’s not the sort of situation I want to see arise so if that’s your consideration as an independence supporter, then the only logical thing to do is to vote remain.

DM: First Minister, great talking to you, thank you very much indeed for your time, Nicola Sturgeon there in Glasgow.