The SNP's Curate's Egg

Lest anyone object that this in an un-Scottish title, I am sure I saw an Episcopalian bishop in the audience at the SNP Conference, and the SNP is strong in the North East of Scotland, with its unusually high level of Episcopalianism (and cricket-playing). My late father was in the 1960s an SNP Councillor while Rector of Bo'ness and Linlithgow in the Episcopal Church (that was how he knew Tam Dalyell...).

Anyway, to business. I claim no credit for having secured the SNP's commitment to oppose the EU Constitreaty because of its failure to abolish the Common Fisheries Policy, but this bog has been asking whether that would in fact be the case, and I obviously welcome the fact that it will be.

It is good to see that someone in Parliament refuses to play David Cameron's silly and self-serving little referendum game, instead recognising and stating that the problem is the Constitreaty itself, to be opposed simply as such, without any need for a referendum. Michael Heseltine's mini-me knows a referendum not going to happen; his demand for one is just his way of getting himself off the hook with his own party and with its sometime media allies. The SNP is having none of this, and nor should anyone else. An amendment simply opposing Constitreaty without mentioning a referendum needs to be tabled, and voted on. Over to you, Alex Salmond? If not, why not?

A shame, then that the SNP has adopted one of the tell-tale signs of the politically unserious and called for the voting age to be lowered to 16. Rather more tellingly, delegates had to reiterate from the floor their desire for a referendum on independence. Told hold your breath. Really, don't. It looks as if the SNP is about to become the Westminster standard-bearer of British nationalism. Arise, Sir Alex Salmond.