The Spectator’s Notes | 16 March 2017

The great achievement of the Scottish Nationalists is to persuade people outside the borders of their own nation — including the London-based media — to equate them with the Scottish people. Obviously, they are their chief elected representatives just now, but the result of the referendum on Scottish independence quite clearly showed that the equation is false. So when Nicola Sturgeon says there has to be another referendum because of Brexit, the equation should be much more firmly challenged. There is no moral reason why the result of a declaredly UK-wide referendum should require another vote in part of the kingdom (next, UDI for London?). Nor is there a constitutional right. There might, of course, be a political reason — that English Tories feel illegitimate on this issue, and so fear a Scottish reaction against high-handedness. It makes more sense, however, to see Ms Sturgeon not as the authentic voice of a whole people, but as an epiphenomenon of Westminster weakness.