THE tens of thousands who turned out in the pouring rain for yesterday’s independence march in Glasgow did the Yes movement proud.

The Tories cannot reasonably argue now that there is no appetitite for a second independence referendum when so many people braved a downpour to show their commitment to the independence cause.

And they did so in such huge numbers that they sent a clear message that denying the Scotish Government’s request for an Section 30-backed referendum is plainly undemocratic.

It is, of course, true that the Scottish Government has had not one, not two but three mandates for such a referendum and that those mandates have done nothing to persuade the Tories to change their minds about blocking such a vote.

But the case for them to do so has never been clearer or more compelling. Scotland voted to remain in Europe ... yet we are being forced to leave. Scotland voted not to return Boris Johnson to Downing Street and yet he is back there as the new British Prime Minister.

The Better Together promise of an equal partnership in 2014 is now revealed as a joke. The Vow, famously displayed on the front page of the Daily Record in the final days of the 2014 campaign, lies trampled on the ground by the very parties who signed it.

And the new Conservative Government has snubbed Scotland yet again by refusing to even respond to our government’s request for an Section 30 agreement.

This state of affairs should infuriate not just the SNP but every party in Scotland who claims to have the best interests of the country at heart.

The Scottish Conservatives have shown how little they care. There is surely pressure now on the Labour Party in Scotland to finally wake up to the gross injustice being perpetrated in the name of the Union.

But any glimmer of hope that they were prepared to do so has been snuffed out by the cancellation of its much-mooted conference on independence.