THERE are a number of things that you can trust more than a Conservative promise to Scotland. You can have more trust that Jeremy Corbyn will indulge himself with a knee-jerk condemnation of Russia. You can have more trust that Donald Trump won’t use Twitter to make knee-jerk condemnations of everything and everyone except Russia. You can have more trust that when there’s a story about Russia in the headlines that the Scottish media won’t find a way of using it to make a knee-jerk condemnation of Thatalicsammin and his telly show. The only surprising thing about the Conservatives selling out the Scottish fishing industry is that anyone is surprised by it. Still, there is a kind of symmetry to it all, the Tories sold out the Scottish fishing industry when the UK joined the EU, and now they’re selling it out as the UK leaves.

It was all terribly predictable. Everyone expected that the EU would insist on something from the UK as a squid pro quo for tariff-free access for the UK to the EU market, and everyone expected that the UK would agree, because the Conservative government in Westminster prioritises the interests of Scotland in the exact same way that the DUP prioritises simultaneous Irish language interpretation at its party conference. Even the Conservatives were saying that they needed Scotland’s resources as bargaining chips during the EU negotiations, which is what Theresa May was referring to in March 2017 when she claimed that Britain would only get the Brexit deal she needed if Scotland was to “pull together” with the rest of the UK. She was talking about the oil and the fish. She sure as hell wasn’t referring to Douglas Ross’s refereeing services being required during the European Cup.

We are now being presented with precisely the scenario that everyone who wasn’t actually either a Conservative politician or a leading light in the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation warned about, and precisely the scenario that Ross Thomson MP said back in January 2017 was “rubbish and scaremongering”, and that it was “beneath” those who made the suggestion. During the General Election campaign in 2017 the Conservatives claimed that Nicola Sturgeon was scaremongering when she warned about the likelihood of Theresa May’s government betraying the Scottish fishing industry. In May 2017 the First Minister tweeted that it was clear that the Conservatives were plotting another sell-out of the Scottish fishing industry. Why else were the Tories insistent that Westminster would retain key aspects of the Common Fisheries Policy after Brexit? Ruth was well harrumphed by Nicola’s claim, and said that the First Minister’s “scaremongering” had been “exposed for the trash that it is”.

Now we discover that the only thing that has been exposed as trash is yet another Conservative promise to Scotland. The commitment to Scotland’s fishing communities has joined the trash heap with the commitment that Scotland would be an equal partner in the Union, the commitment that the powers of Holyrood wouldn’t be altered without Holyrood’s consent, and every single other promise made to Scotland by the Better Together campaign during 2014. Although to give them their due, they did promise that Michelle Mone would leave the country, and she did. Admittedly she had only promised to leave if Scotland voted Yes, and she left anyway, but we should be charitable and give that small mercy to them.

Ruth Davidson has reacted with the strong and resolute standing up for Scotland that we have all come to expect from her appearances on Bake Off. She described the actions of her own government as “disappointing”, which is the sort of thing that you say when your sponge doesn’t rise properly, or what a parent in denial says when their darling child has burned their school to the ground and was caught with a box of used matches, an empty can of petrol and a smirk on their face. Ruth will naturally continue to make excuses for the vandal children in the UK Conservative party when she is finally netted by the media, although when there’s politically troubled waters for the Scottish Tories there’s less sign of Ruth than there is of a fishing ground that doesn’t contain bits of plastic.

It’s not just Ruth. Nigel Farage is terribly upset about it all. Fisheries is a subject dear to his heart, so much so that he turned up to just one meeting of the EU Fisheries Committee where he could have, if he had been bothered, exerted some influence on EU fishing policy. But he was far too busy appearing on BBC Question Time and blaming things on immigrants.

There is a real fear in fishing communities that this supposedly transitional arrangement will become a permanent one. The whole thing smells very fishy. The Scottish fishing industry is small fry compared to the interests of the City of London. Ruth has shot a torpedo across Theresa’s bow, saying that if the UK doesn’t take back full control of the fishing grounds after the end of the transitional period after Brexit, then Ruth won’t back the final Brexit deal.

However since Ruth is also proposing a bill in the Scottish Parliament which will prevent Holyrood from doing anything about the powers that Westminster is clawing back, and she’s also supporting the UK Government’s legal action against the Scottish Parliament’s Continuity Bill, it’s not clear what exactly this refusal to back Theresa’s deal will consist of.

Perhaps Ruth will only let Theresa have a particularly poorly risen sponge from Bake Off. It’s not like the MPs from the Ruth Davidson’s Scottish Conservative Party™ will be any more disposed to do what Ruth tells them than they have been to date. The entire USP of the Ruth Davidson’s Scottish Conservative Party™ was that a vote for them was a vote to surrender all power to Theresa. It’s a bit rich of Ruth to complain about Theresa wielding it. Ruth has got precisely what she asked for.

Now people who voted to leave the EU and who voted Tory because they thought that was the best way to protect the Scottish fishing industry have discovered that they have voted for the worst of all possible outcomes. The UK is leaving the EU, threatening their exports, but fishing boats from EU countries will still have the same access to Scottish waters as they did before, only now the UK won’t be represented in the negotiations about setting fishing quotas. If you voted for the Ruth Davidson’s Scottish Conservative Party™, you’ve voted to be gutted and filleted like a kipper and served up for breakfast.