Major's contradiction on constitutional reform questioned by SNP leader. Salmond calls for 'same say' for Scotland

refuse one for Scotland, SNP leader Alex Salmond told an audience in

Northern Ireland yesterday.

Mr Salmond said Scots welcomed Mr Major's stance on a referendum for

the province but could not help but contrast the Government's position

on a referendum for Scotland. It was a contradiction for which the UN

Human Rights Committee last week had requested an explanation, he said.

Mr Salmond, speaking publicly in Northern Ireland for the first time

as SNP leader, said: ''You do not have to believe in independence, or

the process of independence, to accept the democratic right of people to

choose the constitutional structure they live under.

''That right of choice and self-determination is basic to modern

citizenship. The denial of Scotland's democratic rights -- a denial

based upon an archaic incorporating Union entered into in very different

times and in the context of a very different society -- is a running

sore on Scotland's body politic.''

Mr Salmond, addressing the eighth cross-community John Hewitt

International Summer School in County Antrim, also attacked sectarianism

in Scotland and called for an end to all forms of discrimination and the

protection of a written constitution for all citizens.

''The SNP's commitment to a Bill of Rights and written constitution

means that we will outlaw any discrimination but we also have to

eradicate it from the dark recesses of the Scottish psyche.''

He added: ''We also have to speak out against institutionalised

discrimination. For example, it is a scandal of some considerable

proportions that no Catholic can sit on the throne, or marry the heir to

the throne -- an attitude entrenched in law that belongs to the archaic

arrangements of the eighteenth century, not the bright prospects of the

twenty-first.''

Mr Salmond later argued that the development of Europe had opened the

door to constitutional progress in both Scotland and Ireland.

He concluded by stating that uniting Scotland in the bringing together

of the issues he identified could be done only by acts of reconciliation

and by embarking on a journey that was broader in purpose than simply

the achievement of a political aim.

''There will be a defining moment . . . an instant of change from

political dependence to independence, from Union to sovereignty. But

that moment will be a mark of our progress, not the beginning or end of

the process.

''Similarly, I believe that the process of change in Northern Ireland

cannot be understood within the conventional view of all or nothing.

There must be time to change, a process of change, and building towards

a future. That should be the concept at the heart of the peace process

and it is one that we support and encourage wholeheartedly.''

The John Hewitt International Summer School is held in memory of the

Irish poet who died in 1987.