Who will halt the SNP’s velvet revolution?

Where do the Conservative leadership candidates stand on the Union? Jeremy Hunt has ruled out another referendum in the next decade. Tom Tugendhat says the SNP ‘can’t keep asking the same question hoping for a different answer’. (Oh, sweet summer child.) Penny Mordaunt reckons ‘another divisive referendum’ is ‘the last thing Scotland needs’. The biggest question mark hangs over frontrunner Rishi Sunak, who once reportedly advocated English independence from Scotland on financial grounds. (Finally, a prime minister Nicola Sturgeon can do business with.)

The Union ought to be front and centre in this leadership contest. It is under threat in a way entirely unique in its three-century history. While Sturgeon repeatedly described the 2014 referendum as ‘once in a generation’ and even a ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity, barely had the no vote registered than her party was agitating for a re-run. Sore losers have that prerogative, of course, but devolution means these sore losers have their own parliament, government and proto-state from which to continue their campaign.