As AP reports, Scottish lawmakers have voted to seek a new referendum on independence, to be held within the next two years.

The Scottish parliament voted 69-59 to back First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's call to ask the British government for an independence vote.

Sturgeon says Scots must be given the chance to vote on their future before Britain leaves the European Union. British Prime Minister Theresa May plans to launch the U.K's two-year process to exit the EU on Wednesday by triggering Article 50 of the bloc's key treaty.

Scotland's future should be in Scotland's hands," Sturgeon told lawmakers in the Edinburgh-based parliament.

Scottish voters rejected independence in a 2014 referendum that Sturgeon's Scottish National Party called a once-in-a-generation vote. But Sturgeon says Brexit has changed the situation dramatically.

She says there should be a new vote on independence between fall 2018 and spring 2019, when details of Britain's divorce terms with the bloc are clear.