“What were your thoughts on the Conservative Party conference?” – Louise, Glasgow

Well, Louise, going by some of the speeches, it appears the love affair between the Conservatives and Ukip has reached new heights of unsightly romance! That said, there seems to be one major sticking point for the callous couple – and that’s whether or not they like to shaft the public softly or hard. Indeed, much of the “excitement” – I use that term loosely – at the conference centred on the Tories’ collective inability to determine what “Brexit” actually means. The closest we seemed to get to a coherent answer was from Welsh Conservative leader Andrew Davies, who proclaimed that it actually means “breakfast” and that we are “going to make it work”. Sadly, however, Andrew soon corrected himself, and we were denied this hypothetical fry-up in favour of further bureaucratic ambiguity.

Aside from Davies’ cereal errors, other explanations of Brexit have predominantly involved mindless conjecture about “getting our country back”, which, if – like me – you’re Scottish, means absolutely nothing. Indeed, the entire Tory conference seemed to be a hotchpotch of policies Scotland didn’t vote for. This was compounded by Ruth Davidson standing up and demanding that Nicola Sturgeon “focus on helping Scotland cope with Brexit”, which was akin to encouraging a doctor to focus on curing the symptoms rather than the disease. After all, nothing makes Scotland want to stay in the UK more than being constantly reminded its democratic opinion is divisive, wrong or irrelevant.

Later, Phillip Hammond cautioned us about a “Brexit rollercoaster”, but in a tone that suggested it would be more comparable to a free-fall drop. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister herself, while stopping short of actually defining Brexit, said that the seemingly unintelligible process of leaving the EU would mean “bumps in the road” for Britain. Frankly, I’m staggered Britain is even on a road at this point. The whole scenario feels more like the wasteland before a cliff – and that wasteland appears to be getting darker as we approach the edge.

The Conservative conference was laden with deeply troubling rhetoric about deportation, the abandonment of human rights, and perhaps most concerning of all, Jim Davidson. At first, the Tories hosting a man who’s mainly known for racist stand-up routines, endorsing Donald Trump and ruining snooker seems bizarre; that is until you consider that the entire Tory conference was essentially a love letter to Ukip. Undeniably, the Conservatives are now targeting working-class voters who have abandoned Labour in favour of xenophobia. So much so that they are proclaiming themselves to be “the party for the working class”, which is a bit like saying that rat poison is champagne for hamsters.

Have we become more racist in the wake of Brexit? – Samuel, Edinburgh

We were always told that Brexit was about “taking back control”. However, the people who demanded we “take back control” couldn’t control a shopping trolley never mind a country. It seems to me that Brexit was really about winding back the clock of social progress a few decades, and making casual bigotry a hallmark of British behaviour once again.

As it stands, we haven’t even left the EU, and yet the number of xenophobic attacks has increased exponentially according to experts from the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance. The only nation in Britain to buck this trend is our own – and we must continue to do so. However, according to Theresa May, it is Scotland – the country that voted to remain within the EU – that is guilty of “divisive nationalism”.

The attacks in question range all the way from street violence to the likes of one-time funnyman John Cleese venting his grievances with“half-educated tenement Scots”. This is all pretty abhorrent, but even worse when you consider that the Tories are looking to make this insolence all but enshrined in governmental policy. At the Tory conference, Amber Rudd, backed by Theresa May, went on a disturbing tirade about “British jobs for British workers”. She outlined plans that would force businesses to hire UK nationals over non-British staff, whilst also listing the foreign workers presently in their employment. Essentially, Rudd stated that although the Tories want foreign business, they don’t want foreigners in the businesses. Naturally, this plot to “shame companies that turn down British staff” is clearly in the name of defeating the “divisive nationalism” our Prime Minister claims to loathe.

Sadly, that isn’t even the worst of it. Theresa May has also strongly suggested that foreign doctors will be deported in 2025. This is an extraordinarily offensive policy; the Tories are literally planning to kick out people who helped to cure our sick – talk about “thanks for nothing!” I mean, what kind of country are we living in when we think about deporting medics before we think about deporting politicians? The Prime Minister has also confirmed that the UK will be opting out of human rights law during wartime. Now, you might think that human rights laws would apply to, you know – all human beings – but no, apparently our Conservative rulers are best fit to decide which humans qualify.

What is perhaps the most shocking about all of this, is that Theresa May seems to consider any criticisms of her dreadful policies to be “unpatriotic”. Considering her comments about Scotland’s supposed discordant patriotism, it appears that our sitting PM is deploying the logic of “nationalism is fine when I do it”. Ironically, this Conservative strategy to convince the country that unionists and Tories are the same thing, will likely lead to the end of the union.

Theresa May’s policies seem to be increasingly borrowed from the Nigel Farage book of bigotry. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tories went as Ukip for Hallowe’en! It gets worse when you remember that Theresa May has no mandate and was not even elected as Prime Minister.

At the end of the day, if the “Brexit movement” was a movement at all, it was a bowel movement. And what we’ve seen this week has been a bunch of callous Tories wading in the depths of it, seeking some sort of delusional justification for their foolish proposals. In my view, politics is in need of a good flush, and Scottish independence might just provide it.