Hunting vote postponed as SNP threaten to thwart Tory plans

A vote on fox-hunting due to take place tomorrow has been postponed after SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said her party's 56 MPs would oppose plans to relax the ban in England and Wales – thus abandoning her personal pledge not to intervene in issues that do not concern Scottish voters.

The BBC reports that "changes restricting Scottish MPs' voting rights on non-Scottish issues could now be introduced" before Parliament votes on the hunting ban.

Before the election, Sturgeon had used hunting as an example of the legislation on which Scottish Nationalist MPs would abstain.

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"The SNP have a longstanding position of not voting on matters that purely affect England – such as foxhunting south of the border, for example – and we stand by that," Sturgeon wrote for The Guardian in February this year.

But at a meeting between Sturgeon and her Westminster MPs on Monday night, it was decided to send David Cameron a reminder of just how slender his Commons majority is – and to punish him, as The Daily Telegraph put it, for his "lack of respect" for the Scottish Nationalists.

The SNP's decision means the proposal to relax some of the rules laid down in the 2004 Hunting Act – in particular, the ban on more than two dogs able to flush out a fox for shooting – would certainly have been defeated if the vote had gone ahead tomorrow.

Defending the SNP's decision to intervene, Sturgeon told Radio 4's Today programme this morning that Scotland's interests were at stake. Tomorrow's vote in the Commons vote had "thrown the spotlight" on Scotland's position on fox-hunting, she argued: it was possible that Scotland should be toughening up its fox-hunting rules to come into line with England's law, rather than vice versa.

But as Alex Massie wrote for The Spectator, "You'd be hard-pressed to think of a proposal that had less impact on Scotland." Philip Webster of The Times called it "the most significant development of the new parliament".

Sturgeon also told Radio 4 that the SNP's decision had been motivated in part by the "overwhelming demand" from individuals in England that the Nationalist MPs get involved, ensuring any move to water down the fox-hunting ban was defeated.

But the SNP leader made it clear that this was pay-back for what she called Cameron's "arrogant" attitude towards the Nationalists: they are upset by his plans for English votes for English laws – making the Scottish MPs at Westminster "second-class citizens" in Sturgeon's view – and by his unwillingness to move ahead with further devolved powers for the Scotland.

And this won't be the last such intervention, she warned. Asked by Radio 4's Justin Webb whether it could happen again, she said the SNP MPs would decide on a case-by-case basis how they would exercise their votes at Westminster.

Whether the intervention would have been necessary to defeat the proposed changes to the 2004 Hunting Act is a moot point: Labour MPs would have voted en masse against the proposals, while as many as 50 Tories were also expected to use the chance of a free vote to try to block the changes.

Sir Roger Gale, a senior Conservative MP and patron of the Blue Fox anti-hunting group, told the Telegraph the proposed changes to the Hunting Act were "completely out of step with the wishes of the majority of members of the public".

He added: "The idea that this clock ought to be turned back is regressive and unpleasant… It is time to recognise that, like other 'traditional' pastimes, such as dog-fighting and public hangings, foxhunting has had its day."