Scottish politics is still primarily motivated by
hatred of Tories. For this reason, at the next election 30% of Scots will vote
for left-wing SNP, 35% will vote for left-wing Labour, 5-10 percent will vote
for left-wing Lib Dems, 15-20% will vote for left-wing Scottish Conservatives
and the rest will stay at home. But a year ago the SNP nearly voted for a
socially conservative, fiscally conservative leader who would likewise claim to
be left-wing, whatever that means.
Scottish nationalism unlike any other European
nationalism is not really about independence at all. It is for this reason that
it didn’t emerge as a force in the nineteenth century when everyone else
discovered nationalism. It did not even really emerge in the 1930s and 1940s
when lots of European countries provided the Waffen SS with divisions. The SNP flirted
with fascism and had its leaders interned for supporting Germany, but few Scots
at the time were even aware that the SNP existed.
Scotland has always had a desire to maintain a somewhat
separate identity and has achieved this primarily by a half-joking, half-serious
hostility to the population of our nearest neighbour. To be Scottish is to not
be English. But for many centuries we were as content with the merger of Scotland
and England as anyone else and there was no serious independence movement until
around 2011 or later.
So, if Scottish nationalism is not really about
independence, what is it about? It’s about Margaret Thatcher.
If the UK had continued its managed decline after 1979
with a succession of Labour governments and One Nation Tories we might still be
mining for coal, making steel and producing cars that no one wanted to buy. We
might still have British rail and other nationalised industries and the SNP
would still be a tiny little band of eccentrics in kilts and tweed jackets
laughed at by every other Scot. Instead, we had Margaret Thatcher and Scotland
can no more forgive her for existing than the Irish can forgive Oliver Cromwell.
It is for this reason that there is no centre-right
alternative in Scotland and no chance of a genuine alternative to the left. We
can be ruled by left-wing SNP pretending it wants independence to avoid the
possibility of us being ruled by Margaret Thatcher again or we can have a
combination of Labour, Lib Dems and Tory Wets offering the same minus
independence. But what they all offer is the same policies and the same dull
thoughts.
It is for this reason that we end up with collectivism
no matter who we vote for and politicians thinking it is their business to
decide what we eat by restricting meal deals, what we drink by introducing
minimum unit pricing and whether or not we can sell our house if it doesn’t
have a heat pump.
If every party, you can vote for in Scotland is
left-wing do not be surprised if every solution to every problem is collective
and involves higher public spending and more micromanagement of our lives. It
is an odd sort of freedom that the SNP offers.
The problem with Scottish conservatism is that it isn’t
conservative, but is just as tainted by Margaret Thatcher as if its policies came
directly from Friedrich Hayek and Adam Smith. Most Scots would not even
consider voting Conservative even if it offered a gold sovereign to every voter
for every vote. The brand is toxic and so trundles along at between 15 and 20% occasionally
a little more occasionally a little less, but with never a chance to actually
do anything let alone rule.
When you explain to Scottish nationalists that the
present Conservative government is in terms of public spending, taxation and
liberal immigration policies about as left-wing as it has ever been, they still
respond with cliches about Tories. When the next Labour government continues in
an indistinguishable fashion, they will be called red Tories. Yet perversely the
most likely result of Scotland obtaining independence would be real Tories.
The first Scottish government after independence would
try to create a socialist paradise where everything was free and work was
optional, but after that failed, it would have to cut public spending, lower
taxation and try to undercut both the former UK and the European Union by
creating a more competitive economic environment that was friendly to business
with fewer regulations and with lower corporation tax.
While the UK has largely failed to take advantage of
Brexit by undercutting the EU, Scotland would have to take advantage of Scexit
by undercutting the former UK in order to make up for the loss of the Barnett
formula and the other economic advantages of being part of the UK single market.
It might work, but it would be MacThatcherism with as many teeth and claws as a
Scottish wild cat.
But then if nearly 50% of SNP members would vote for
Kate Forbes who is a Tartan Tory married to a real Tory and if the inevitable
result of independence was Thatcherism and free market capitalism, why will
approximately 100% of the Scottish electorate vote for left-wing parties at the
General Election?
The reason is the word “Tory”. The Conservative brand
in the UK generally and especially in Scotland has become totally poisonous.
The Tory party ceased to exist in 1834. The word “Tory” has always been an
insult and was associated with Jacobitism and those who supported James the
Second. No one calls Labour or the Liberals “Whigs”, so it is time also to
ditch the word “Tory” that is both archaic and deliberately insulting.
It may take the death of the Conservative party to
achieve this, but there is a natural majority both in the UK generally and even
in Scotland for centre right economics which makes us wealthier and a party
that puts the interests of British citizens first. Just don’t call it Conservative
or Tory.
I want a moderate centre-right party that is willing
to do these things.
1 Lower public spending.
2 Cut taxes
2 Reform public services like the NHS.
3 Cut net migration to 100,000.
4 Deport everyone who arrives in the UK illegally.
5 Increase defence spending.
6 Punish criminals rather than law abiding citizens.
7 Stop woke nonsense ruining our lives.
8 Adapt to climate change without making us poorer with Net Zero.
9 Make clear that we have a right to free speech.
10 Defend the territorial integrity of the UK against its enemies.
Do what is necessary to achieve these goals. If it
means leaving the European Court of Human rights do it. If it means breaking
this treaty or that treaty do it. Parliament is sovereign. It always pretends
that it can’t, but it can. All it needs is a majority and to push through
whatever legislation is necessary. We could have done all of this in 2019, but
the Conservative party blew its majority and achieved nothing.
There is a huge natural majority for these policies.
Not only do they win the Red Wall in England they win in other parts of the UK
too including Scotland. But there is no one to vote for. No one wants to give voters
what they want.
The Conservative party at present is full of social democrats
who are indistinguishable from Blairites and who hate Thatcherism or are
embarrassed by it. Let these people join the Lib Dems or the Labour Party.
Those Conservatives who genuinely believe in free market economics and a
smaller state and protecting the national interest rather than making our
country worse every year can help to form a new movement. It can join with the
more moderate parts of Reform/UKIP to create a party offering the voters
throughout the UK what they want, rather than what they don’t want.
Above all it has to remain moderate and inclusive
attempting to represent all British citizens or it will fail from the start.
The task this year is to defeat the SNP decisively,
but this will not be enough to make Scotland or the UK in general more prosperous
unless we find an alternative to the centre-left which has come to dominate
Scottish politics.
The Scottish Conservatives can muck around on 15-20% by
remaining wet pale imitations of the Lib Dems and achieve precisely nothing or
they can rebrand as something else and develop policies that might actually
make both Scotland and the UK more prosperous.
There needs to be a realignment of the centre right
across the UK that above all ditches the word “Tory” and perhaps even the word “conservative”.
We don’t want to conserve the mess that Britain has become we want to improve
it. To conserve is to look backwards, while the task is to move forwards.
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