New vision of the same old separatism

IT is now clear that Nicola Sturgeon’s aims for the SNP after the General Election go far beyond anything her party has dreamed of before.

The vision of the future conjured up by the SNP leader in her conference speech yesterday was not only frightening, it showed how far the Nationalists are prepared to go to tear apart the fabric of the British state.

Miss Sturgeon declared that she wanted to use her party’s MPs to abolish the House of Lords, stop David Cameron becoming Prime Minister and halt private sector involvement in the health service – in England.

Leaving aside the fact that this is more than a little presumptuous for a party that has just six MPs at the moment, there is something inherently undemocratic about this. The Tories may well end up with the most seats, voted for by a majority of the people of England, yet Miss Sturgeon is prepared to use the votes of one small part of the UK to prevent the Conservative leader from becoming Prime Minister.

She is then prepared to overturn a thousand years of parliamentary history by destroying the House of Lords – before, presumably, quitting the UK and leaving the mess she has created behind her.

It is obvious that this approach will not go down well with English voters, particularly if Miss Sturgeon makes good on her threat to use SNP votes to change the health service in England, where her party has no remit whatsoever.

The First Minister dresses up all her announcements in the language of ‘solidarity’ and ‘friendship’. Yet the reality is that her plan is the same as it has always been – to rip the United Kingdom apart.

Having failed to persuade Scots of the merits of breaking away from Britain during last year’s referendum, it seems the SNP is now trying a new tactic: to antagonise the English until they no longer see the merits of England staying in the Union with Scotland.