WHATEVER the result, I don’t think it will make too much sense to get overly excited in either direction and read too much into the headline outcome of today’s vote in Scotland.
But it will make urgent sense to understand in detail what is happening in our country and across the UK as we consider the choices we face on what we do next and for the longer term. As Sartre put it, “we are our choices”. The strategic choices facing the Scottish Tories are amongst the most significant that will arise from what happens.
Polls suggest that the SNP will win this election in the second or third best Westminster performance in its history. When I consider the sweep of my own life and devotion to politics this will be a result I would have bitten your arm off for over much of the last half-century.
At time of writing, the polls tell me very little about what could actually happen because so many constituencies are so marginal. If 1090 people had voted differently in nine constituencies in 2017, the SNP would have had 26 MPs rather than 35. That is how close it was last time, 0.04% of those voting could have made a difference in nine seats. Remarkable. But do those small number of choices truly determine where the country’s head and heart are at?
Similarly, if 5350 people across a different nine constituencies changed their vote then the SNP would have had 44 MPs out of 59. Taken together, fewer than 6500 people in an electorate of just under four million could have determined a different outcome in 18 of 59 seats. The SNP could have had anywhere between 25 or 44 MPs from broadly the same national mood. Remarkable.
The 2015 election was a never-to-be-repeated, impossible result in a multi-party system reflecting the unfairness of first pass the post, even if it was remarkably satisfying for us.
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In any Westminster election it has always been tough for the SNP to remain relevant and resist a squeeze as the whole UK determines who has the keys to No 10. That the SNP did so well in 2017 after so long in power at Holyrood will be viewed by history as a remarkable result. The froth of partisan coverage will not survive the test of time.
It is easy to forget that even as recently as 2010, with the SNP heading towards an overall Holyrood majority to come, they polled fewer than one-fifth of the vote and six seats at Westminster.
It looks possible that the Tories will poll their best performance in Scotland since the 1970s despite being led by Boris Johnson’s extremist Brexiteer populism. Clearly for many the “get Brexit done message” has cut through. The Tories have become a home for many who feel hardcore, both for Brexit and against independence.
The “get it done” canard is just another falsehood and left unchallenged by the crashing incompetence of the Labour and Liberal Democrat leaderships. We must pray it does not deliver Johnson the UK majority he craves.
Such a minority base camp in a first-past-the-post system can deliver results which mean the Tories of Carlaw and Johnson could better the result of the Tories of Davidson and May.
What this group of MPs will stand for is currently beyond my analysis and comprehension. Other than “getting Brexit done” and backing the character of Britain Trump, as the US president calls the Prime Minister, against the will of the Scottish Parliament.
A temporary fillip may in fact undo a lot of the work undertaken by Davidson to defang and detoxify the Tories in Scotland. Trenches are being dug and Scotland will face a choice between reaching for a higher common purpose and approach to politics; or doubling down on Trumpist populism and division.
The signs are currently concerning when their candidate in their top target seat in Lanarkshire refers to an area of the constituency as “a solid, Unionist, royalist, Rangers-supporting heartland”.
This phrase is, self-evidently, a transparent dog whistle to the Orange Lodge membership and a patronising insult to the working classes. The Orange vote was once a factor in underpinning the Tories in Scotland, this is clear evidence of them seeking to return to such a place as we enter the 2020s. This is the Scottish incarnation of Tommy Robinson’s strategy in England.
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It seems that, in an attempt to win dozens of votes to swing marginal calls, the party is willing to say or do anything. As Trump showed the way, so Johnson followed and now it seems the Scottish Tories also. That could prove problematic for them in the medium to long term.
At this election the Tories will be supported by both the Orange Order and Tommy Robinson, while one-nation conservatives like Sir John Major and Michael Heseltine urge people not to support them.
MEANWHILE in Edinburgh, the former Tory leader Ruth Davidson who resigned in part because she could not thole the direction of travel under Johnson, has joined in with the Lads’ Club culture, saying voters call the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon “that effing woman”.
In doing so, senior politicians know what they are doing. Words are chosen deliberately and carefully and they seek to justify, endorse and motivate a perspective and attitude to women in general and the First Minister in particular.
The Tories’ conduct at a UK level has – I think most reasonable people agree – debased politics and society. Sadly, very sadly indeed, the Tory leadership in Scotland is putting a red, white and blue kilt with orange braiding around the same approach.
So without knowing the actual result today I think I can say with certainty that the SNP will win in Scotland. The Tories will solidify their base and maybe even nudge forward. But they appear to be doing so by aligning with the same bigotry and chauvinism of Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban, Johnson, Farage and Robinson.
I have many, many friends in the Scottish Conservative party who will be as appalled by this as Major and Heseltine and Kenneth Clarke are.
Do their members really want to be the Scottish DUP, defined by what they are not? Or do they want to stand for a country, economy and society that they would like to be. That could be one of the biggest questions facing the leader of the Scottish Conservatives as we enter a new decade.
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