Tuesday 14 July 2015 6:08 am

Vote on relaxing the fox hunting has been postponed after SNP said it would oppose changes

A vote on relaxing the Hunting Act has been postponed after the SNP said it will vote against relaxing fox hunting laws, and thereby renege on a pledge not to vote on issues that have no impact on Scotland.

While Conservative MPs had been given a free vote on a proposal to relax the use of dogs during hunting, supporters were unlikely to win a majority in the House of Commons, due to the SNP teaming up with Labour.

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon in February pointed to fox hunting as the type of English-only issue her party's MPs would not vote on.

The revelations come just over a week after Chris Grayling, leader of the Commons, announced plans to create a system in Westminster that supports “English Votes for English Laws”, following through on an election promise from the Conservatives.

Former Conservative Party politician and political commentator Iain Dale said the decision by the SNP is "transparently hypocritical" and a sure sign of things to come:

Throughout the last parliament the SNP made a virtue of not voting on English-only issues. Sadly, that honourable position has been jettisoned just to give David Cameron a bloody nose. The SNP are playing with constitutional fire.

The UK government plans to introduce measures to prevent Scottish MPs voting on purely English matters in the future.

Restricting Scottish MPs' voting rights on non-Scottish issues could now be introduced first, in an attempt to outfox the Scottish nationalists.

Of course, this will probably upset Sturgeon: