THIS weekend the Conservative leadership contest was consumed with the question of who consumed what, as contenders vied with one another to admit to drug taking. It’s fine to admit to a history of drug use if you’re a middle-class Conservative Party hopeful – the subtext here is that they have the strength of character to rise above it, and resist drug use becoming drug abuse.
That’s their self-justification for their hypocrisy. It’s fine for them to have used drugs, it’s fine for them to continue to criminalise ordinary people who use drugs.
Hypocrisy is very much the stock in trade of the Tory Party. We see it in full display in Ruth Davidson, who has gone from a fervent Remainer to a backer of a Conservative leadership candidate who has said that he’s prepared to leave the EU on October 31 without a deal. Ruth, Scotland’s foremost practitioner of politics as photo opportunities, has decided to back Sajid Javid in the Tory leadership contest. That’s the Sajid who said the other week, to considerable amusement in Scotland, that he wouldn’t allow Scotland to have another independence referendum.
READ MORE: Sturgeon brands Tory leadership contest a 'horror show'
Ruth didn’t think what he said was risible. She longs for a future prime minister who high-handedly refuses to consent to Scotland having a democratic right to determine its own future. Ruth calls herself a Unionist, but she’s really an incorporationist. She doesn’t believe in a Union, she believes in a unitary British state in which Scotland is subordinate and submissive. The Scottish Conservatives preach about the Union, but don’t practise it. They stand for a Scotland that has no say, no control, and no input into the direction that this supposed Union takes.
Sajid Javid is a Brexiteer, and so is Ruth Davidson these days. The Saj hasn’t ever taken drugs. He gets high enough on his own ego, so you can see his appeal to Ruth.
He is determined to deliver Brexit, determined to ram it through irrespective of the wishes of the people of Scotland. In a recent interview Sajid said that he would do everything in his power to ensure that the UK leaves the EU on October 31 with a deal, but if he has to choose between no deal and no Brexit, he’ll choose no deal.
Then he won’t “allow” Scotland to have a say on whether this UK is really the respectful partnership firmly within the EU that Scotland was told it could be a part of in 2014. That’s just fine with Ruth Davidson.
In all this Scotland is given even less consideration by the Conservative leadership contenders than the Scottish fitba team gets from British TV sports commentators when England is playing in the same competition. That’s just fine with the Scottish Tories, the party of the Cringe, the party of Knowing Your Place, the party of I’m a Proud Scot But.
Scotland is utterly irrelevant to the Conservative leadership candidates, except as a place that needs to be dictated to in order to prove their hardline credentials to the Tory membership in Middle Englandshire who’ll make the final choice.
Ruth Davidson speaks a lot about the will of the Scottish people when she’s banging on about not having another independence referendum.
The Scottish Tories have recently started claiming that only 20% of Scots want another referendum, a figure which is cherry picked from a recent opinion poll and which refers to the number who said that they want another referendum within the next few months.
READ MORE: Timeline: When will the next Prime Minister be declared?
However opinion polls also consistently show that support for Scottish independence is hovering around the 46% to 49% mark, which means that Ruth is co-opting a considerable chunk of independence supporters into her supposed super-majority against a referendum. These are people who want a referendum at a different time for tactical reasons, not people who agree with Ruth and Sajid Javid that there should never be another referendum.
Ruth Davidson doesn’t speak for them. Surprisingly enough the British media in Scotland hasn’t called her out on her creative use of polling data. Well, I say surprisingly. That’s surprising in the same sense that it’s a continual shock that the sun keeps rising in the west.
For all that Ruth and her pals bang on about what the people of Scotland supposedly want or don’t want with respect to another independence referendum, they are however strangely silent on the will of the people of Scotland when it comes to Brexit. That’s despite the fact that a full 62% of Scotland’s voters in the recent EU elections voted for parties which want to remain in the EU, and an additional 9% voted for Labour which may or may not want another EU referendum depending on the phase of the moon.
The Scottish Parliament currently has a majority in favour of another independence referendum, elected on a mandate to bring about a referendum should circumstances change. Brexit was explicitly cited as an example of such a change.
Ruth Davidson is seemingly in favour of government by opinion poll when those polls can be cherry picked to give figures in her favour, but not so keen on respecting the result of actual Scottish elections. Funnily enough she never seems to mention those opinion polls that say her party would be wiped out in Scotland in a Westminster General Election.
If the Scottish Conservatives really believed in a Union, they would be standing up for a Scotland which overwhelmingly wants to remain in the EU.
They’d be fighting tooth and nail for the softest form of Brexit possible. Ruth Davidson would be threatening to secede from the UK Conservatives in order to set up a Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party in order to provide a strong and distinctive voice for Scotland within this supposed Union that they claim to hold so precious.
But they’re not doing that. Instead they preach submission and subordination, obedience and obeisance.
By failing to stand up for Scotland within the UK, they are proving that there is no Union and no place within the UK for Scottish distinctiveness.
The Tory leadership contenders are hypocrites on drug use.
Ruth Davidson might never have taken a single illegal drug in her life, but she’s the greatest hypocrite of them all.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel