Nicola wants to have her cake and eat it

GOVERNMENTS should be able to introduce legislation as they see fit, free to react quickly to domestic problems untroubled by meddlesome legal action from courts in remote and uninvolved Europe...

Sounds like the cornerstone of the Conservatives, a party whose view of Europe is that good fences make good neighbours. They’re happy to co-operate with Brussels on mutually beneficial areas such as trade but grasp that too much familiarity means tension.

But hold on. The latest critic of interfering Europe is none other than First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, aggrieved because the SNP’s plans for minimum pricing on alcohol are being frustrated by those busybodies over the Channel.

Yet this is the same Miss Sturgeon who darkly told us that if the In/Out referendum on EU membership does not go her way, with Scotland staying in, then it would unleash the misery of another independence referendum.

In short, Miss Sturgeon wants to have her cake and eat it. She refuses to stand with the Tories on the referendum, yet clearly wants to see the sort of reforms David Cameron is seeking – to roll interference from distant judges back from Britain and to let the people we voted for govern us.

Yet underneath, Miss Sturgeon and her SNP are fans of big government and centralisation. And didn’t they bang on endlessly about how an independent Scotland would be welcomed at the European table like a long-lost child?

The inescapable truth is that the SNP tries to be all things to all men, mouthing whatever it thinks will help it along the road to independence.

Miss Sturgeon talking tough on Europe fools no one. She and her party would sell us out to Europe in a heartbeat as the price for delivering their dream of separation.