The Scottish "Parliament" last night voted for a referendum on the new European Union Constitution/ Treaty.
SNP, Green and Conservative MSPs voted for the referendum, the Liberal Democrats voted against. More embarrassingly for Brown, though, the Labour MSPs abstained in the final vote, thus ensuing the motion’s success.
Which doesn’t really make a great deal of difference, as in the big scheme of things the Scottish "government" has no power, obviously, to "force" the UK government to hold a referendum on the new treaty/constitution.
But I wonder if the Scottish Tories would have still supported (and Labour still abstained from voting on) the motion, if the vote had been for a referendum solely for Scotland, which, technically, the "Parliament" could have called."
Their traditional Unionist instincts versus their (for the majority) EU-phobic tendencies and the desire to give Brown yet another a bloody nose- that would have been a very interesting internal debate.
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