The SNP leader has told her party’s annual conference that an independence referendum will take place in October 2023 if the supreme court decides the Scottish government can hold a vote without UK consent. The first minister also called the UK government’s disastrous mini-budget in late September ‘unconscionable’. Sturgeon said: 'It took the Tories three years to realise Boris Johnson was a disaster. With Liz Truss, it took them just three weeks.’