Harold Elletson: History could make Salmond a great unionist

AFTER his stunning election victory, Alex Salmond announced that Scottish independence was now "inevitable". I suspect he is right and it is time for the Westminster establishment to consider the potential consequences for England.

To say that he is the most consistently under-rated politician in Britain has become almost a clich. It is nevertheless true. Like some ancient Celtic battlefield, UK politics is littered with the corpses of the First Minister's political enemies. Thatcher, Blair and Brown have all gone. The Tory Party, largely thanks to its own arrogance and myopia, has been annihilated north of the Border. Now Labour and the Lib Dems have been humiliated. If anyone in British politics could be expected to recognise inevitability, it is Alex Salmond.

The SNP has an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament and nothing will be the same again.

King Canute, the great Anglo-Danish monarch who commanded the advancing tide to withdraw, should not serve as a model for modern English political leaders. They should now focus instead on the nature of Scottish independence. An essential element of nationalism is a belief in Scotland's place in Europe. One consequence of independence could be to kill off once and for all the "little Englander" fantasy of withdrawal from the EU.

It could also have profound implications both for the future of the euro and for the nature and structure of European defence and security. If independence is indeed inevitable, England and Scotland will continue to share many common interests. These will be best pursued within the context of common membership of the EU and other international bodies.

Conservatives should recognise this and see that "things must change, in order that they remain the same". As for Alex Salmond, if he can set an independent Scotland to work to unite the nations of Britain together in pursuit of a common agenda, history may even come to see him as the best unionist of all.

• Dr Harold Elletson was Conservative MP for Blackpool North from 1992-97. He is currently the chairman of the New Security Foundation..