Labour’s return to power could be death knell for the Union

That is what some recent polling data would suggest, though for now I remain somewhat sceptical that Labour’s sudden boost in popularity will hold in the long term. When it comes to the various scandals and sleaze of the Tory Party, Britain seems to have the collective memory of a jackbooted goldfish.

Since David Cameron’s ascension in 2010 the Conservative Party has been like Teflon. Not only has nothing seemed to stick to it, it has poisoned the political waters of Britain for years to come.

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But that may be finally changing. Not the part about poisoning political discourse though. The Conservative Party have found the manufactured culture war to be far too useful in rallying their supporters to discard off hand.

Rather, something has finally stuck to Boris Johnson and his administration – and it’s a Christmas party hangover that’s been a year in the making. In the end, it wasn’t drowning migrants or the party’s recent dalliances with authoritarianism that finally caused would-be Tory voters to question its intentions, but the simple, petty fact of knowing that somebody else got something they weren’t allowed to have.

For the rest of us, the Christmas Party That Never Happened was just another example of the selfish and elitist attitudes that define the Tories through and through, made all the sharper by the isolation and loss we have all experienced these past two years.

Looking back to a letter from Eton College to Johnson’s father Stanley, the Prime Minister’s classics teacher noted: “I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.”

I don’t see Johnson choosing to resign from his position any time soon, even if the investigation into Partygate does come back to confirm what we already know to be true. The Prime Minister has always viewed himself as above the rules of others. Ego aside, I suspect the only other thing stopping Johnson from fleeing the sinking ship of Downing Street now is the fear Priti Patel would instruct the lifeboats not to intervene.

I won’t deny there is a dark sense of satisfaction in knowing that Johnson, a man who clearly views himself on par with the totemic British prime ministers of yore, will end his time at Downing Street as pitifully as his predecessors – though watching this all play out from Scotland is a somewhat bittersweet experience.

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When it comes to the eternal battle between Labour and the Conservatives it often feels like being asked to pick between someone farting through your letterbox or being repeatedly kicked in the head: neither is a particularly desirable experience, but one is certainly worse than the other.

Should Starmer take the throne, it will be down more to the implosion of the Conservatives over anything he himself has achieved; the weary resignation of the British public to “give the other guys a go” having finally had enough – and while there are obvious standouts in the party, given its leader’s panicked centrism it’s hard to see how much better Labour would really be.

We can’t forget that the Tory Party’s unsettling enthusiasm for authoritarianism is not unique to them in the House of Commons. The crackdown and effective ban on any form of protest in England is simply the final cornerstone of a work started by Labour, which instituted the first protest exclusion zones around Westminster, and whose Iraq War era anti-terrorism laws were routinely abused by police. Even an anti-Blair T-shirt was enough to evoke Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

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There’s no denying Boris Johnson has done a lot for the case for independence, but I don’t believe that the end of his time as Prime Minister will reverse the decline of the United Kingdom in any meaningful way. For a start, all the inherent problems of the Union remain, regardless of the name on Downing Street’s front door – the democratic deficit, the limitations of devolution, the case for autonomy and far more.

I have some sympathy with the argument that we shouldn’t vote to leave the Union purely because of the actions of one prime minister or political party, when that in and of itself is not a fixed position for the UK. Prime ministers come and go, after all.

But to really hold that position you would need to discount the simple fact Scotland does vote differently from England, and has done so now for the better part of 70 years. There is simply no truly progressive alternative in Westminster to the Big Two like there is in the Scottish Parliament. It doesn’t make sense to remain tied to a political union that routinely leaves an entire nation without any meaningful input into its political path.

The Conservative Party may be an existential threat to Britain, but so too would be the return of Keir Starmer’s Labour. Johnson and Starmer, a public schoolboy and a British knight, are both symbols and defenders of Britain’s ailing political class. For those opposed to independence on the basis that Labour could still return to power and save the day, it will be the end of hope in the Union.