A LABOUR councillor in West Lothian has defected to the Conservatives. Angela Doran-Timson was elected as a Labour councillor representing the Broxburn, Uphall and Winchburgh ward in 2017. She has now decided that having looked upon the chaos, incompetence and corruption that characterises the Johnson regime in Westminster and the way in which they are traducing the devolution settlement in the teeth of opposition from the Scottish Parliament, without even bothering to pretend to obtain a democratic mandate from the people of Scotland to do so, these are the politics she wants to be associated with.

Following on from the news last week that former Glasgow Labour MP Tom Harris has accepted a job as an adviser to Alister Jack in the Scotland Office, it's more proof, as if any were required, that there's a revolving door between the Scottish Conservatives and their counterparts in the Labour party. Neither is interested in respecting the will of the people of Scotland, who voted decisively in May for a Scottish Parliament that will bring about another independence referendum. They are only interested in maintaining British rule in Scotland, whether or not that's what the people of Scotland want or regard as being in the interests of Scotland.

According to councillor Doran-Timson, the prospect of another independence referendum is the biggest threat to our country. So not Brexit, then; not being ripped out of the European Union, the customs union and the European single market against the will of the majority in Scotland; not the callous mishandling of the pandemic by a British Government which puts business interests before public health considerations. It's not the proliferation of dark money, that fuels the British political scene and the erosion of democracy by a Conservative government that is restricting the right to vote and abolishing the independence and neutrality of the Electoral Commission. It's not even the climate crisis and a British Government that still issues licences to fossil-fuel companies and authorises the development of new coal mines.

No, according to the latest recruit to the ranks of the Scottish Conservatives, the biggest threat that Scotland faces is the prospect that the people of Scotland exercise their democratic right to self-determination at the ballot box and decide for themselves what form of government is best suited to Scotland's needs. In other words, the Conservatives believe that the biggest threat to Scotland is democracy. "Some in the Labour group would even be happy to see indyref2," she said, as though the exercise of democracy in Scotland and the recognition of mandates given to the Scottish Parliament by the electorate of Scotland were a bad thing.

It's certainly the case that democracy is the biggest threat to the Scottish Conservatives – without being propped up by politicians elected thanks to votes outwith Scotland and an overwhelmingly Conservative British media, the Scottish Conservatives would remain a marginal and minority party forever on the sidelines of Scottish politics. However, the fact that their representatives resort to hyperbolic and hysterical claims that the exercise of the democratic process is the biggest threat that Scotland faces can only be based in their fear that they are likely to lose in the referendum and their lack of confidence in their own ability to present a compelling and persuasive case. After all, you don't describe a referendum as the greatest threat facing the country if you are certain that you're going to win it.

This latest defection to the Conservatives is not a sign of their strength, it's a sign of their weakness and of the insecurity of the British nationalist position in Scotland.

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