It ain't over until it's over.......

"The Union of England and Scotland is over"
So bawls Heffer in yesterday's Daily Telegraph.

Which may make for a good headline, but it simply isn't true.

When Alex Salmond's SNP administration was elected in May the last rites were read, and the final process of sundering got under way. All that remains is for the Scots, in a referendum, to vote to stick the coffin in the grave, with the Union flag still on it, and pile on the earth.

Nice soundbites but 2 inconvenient facts remain for Simon:

1. A large majority of the Scottish electorate still voted for the unionist parties in May.
2. Any referendum tomorrow on Scottish independence would deliver a resounding "no".

So, short of Scotland being forcibly chucked out of the Union by England, there is little to zero medium-term chance of Mr Heffer's prophesy coming true.

Where Heffer is right is that NuLabour's Unionism is driven not by any inherent belief in the concept of the United Kingdom as a united entity, they want it to continue because their political lives depend on it. As a conviction unionist, I find their continual bleatings over "Britishness" and their new-found love of the Union hypocritical and so obviously self-serving to be comical, but as a conviction unionist I'm prepared to be pragmatic enough to exploit this support for the greater good (just a bit like how the British Labour Party exploited the "spongers" of Northern Irish unionism when it was in their political interest to do so); I'm also pragmatic enough to realise that the continual existance and electorally success of Sinn Fein is one of the best guarantees we've got of N.Ireland remaining British...but that's another topic for another day.

If Brown, Hain, Darling and Co were really serious about the Union, then they would be doing all they could to ensure the devolution experiment, which (let's not forget) they unleased upon the UK, does not spiral any further out of control. The argument for the Union stands on its merits in three parts of the Kingdom; N.Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the weak link is increasingly becoming England, where, quite rightly, questions are being asked about the inequities of assymetrical devolution. NULabour should stop wrapping themselves in the Union Jack (it doesn't suit them anyway) and start answering those questions.

Two final truths from Heffer:

It is a horrible thing for Labour to admit, but thanks solely to its actions and initiatives Britain is now more a term of geography than of politics.

I am sure from the Scots' point of view independence would be a mistake - the Luxembourg of the north they are not - but grown-ups must be allowed to make their own mistakes.

Or at least have the choice to make those mistakes, let's have that a UK-wide "independence" referendum asap.