IN the hours after yesterday’s UK Supreme Court ruling found that Holyrood cannot legislate for a second independence referendum, the First Minister reaffirmed her commitment to treating the next UK General Election as a "de-facto referendum".
The idea of treating Westminster elections as votes on Scotland’s place in the Union is, of course, not a new one. It was the old-school electoral strategy of the SNP before Alex Salmond persuaded members to change the party’s policy in 2000 – precisely because the gradualist wing of the party understood that it scared particular voters off.
