Stephen Paton: After independence, the Tories will have nowhere to hide

Prior to 2014, the strength of Conservatism in Scotland was more likely raised in relation to the number of pandas at Edinburgh Zoo than in response to any serious political query. Those were the heady days before the constitutional question became the defining political issue of the decade.

Enter the unholy alliance of Better Together and Ruth Davidson’s ascent to the lofty stardom of being “alright for a Tory”, and the success of her party that followed.

The independence referendum provided the Conservative Party in Scotland with a convenient guise to gather power. “Only the Conservatives can stop indyref2,” is a mantra that has been bludgeoned into our collective consciousness for going on seven years now, a moving walkway that has funnelled Unionists past any concerning right-wing policies and into voting booths across the nation.

As the Scottish electorate cooried into their respective positions on the constitution, Labour singularly failed to stake their claim, leaving those who placed the preservation of Westminster’s dominance at the top of their priority list with a natural home under Davidson’s tutelage.

If independence was to be raison d’etre of the SNP, the Tories would model themselves into a grubby shadow of Scotland’s dominant political party – and in doing so suddenly found themselves relevant after decades of dealing with the consequences of Thatcher’s reign.

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“Getting on with the day job” is, in reality, the last thing the Conservatives want the SNP or Scottish Greens to do, lest they suddenly find themselves being cross-examined on what they stand for, rather than what they stand against. There was, however, only so long the silver bullet of a looming independence referendum could hold before the party’s political resurgence was brought to the precipice.

The Tories’ latest party political broadcast is almost a masterclass in taking as long as possible to say precisely nothing at all. So determined were they to avoid actually mentioning anything that could be mistaken for a concrete promise, a significant portion of the runtime was padded out with an explanation on how to cast a vote in the upcoming election.

The party’s leaflets are, of course, no different, focusing themselves almost entirely on opposition to a future poll on the constitution. Despite their use of a belittling lexicon of negativity to associate an act of democracy with division and strife, in reality I suspect the Tories actually miss the glory days of the first independence referendum.

Things were simpler for the Conservatives in the run up to Scotland’s historic vote. They had a popular leader in Davidson, a stranglehold on political Unionism, and something else crucial to right-wing organising– a common enemy. Now things are more complicated and fractured, with the star performer of the Tory Party ditching accountability for ermine in her transition to the House of Lords.

Not that the party isn’t trying to squeeze every last drop of credibility out of Davidson’s tenure. It wasn’t Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross taking centre stage in the party’s political broadcast, but rather the soon-to-be peer. Likewise, Davidson has remained the main feature of campaign leaflets across Scotland, despite not even being a candidate in this election.

As polls shift and fortunes falter, the Tories seem more desperate than ever to hold on to what worked after the first referendum. But this is not the same election as 2016’s. Things have changed.

As more people open themselves to the benefits of leaving behind the post-colonial stain of Westminster, support for the Tories has stalled.

With polls repeatedly showing that support for independence has tenuously become the majority position in Scotland, the Conservatives’ strict opposition to a future referendum has reached the limits of its use, painting a picture now of a party that hasn’t moved on from 2014 and that has a particular disdain for democracy.

I hope this will be the last Holyrood election we hold as part of the United Kingdom, not only because independence will bring with it the levers to create meaningful change in our nation, but also because come future polls the Tories will suddenly find themselves without a convenient distraction from their dearth of vision.

The flip side of that, though, is the SNP Government’s inability to truly offer radical change while reigning as the dominant party. While the Tories were enjoying their renaissance in Unionism, the SNP were lashing themselves to the wheel of the independence movement itself, binding their fortunes to ours.

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As such, they soon found themselves in a political deadlock, unable to move forward with any policy that would shake the foundations of its broad church approach to politics. This has led to many years of mostly competent, if safe, governance with the odd baby box thrown in for flavour.

Equally, though, it has led to an unwillingness to address the more radical elements within the party’s ranks; a failure that led to the spawning of the Alba Party and a growing culture of conspiracy-driven intolerance within the independence movement.

Independence will bring real power closer to the hands of all us Scots but, more than that, it will shatter the anti-independence shield that the Conservatives hide their ideology behind.

Independence is out of the box, and there’s no putting it back in. But until it is achieved, as a country, we’re going to have to deal with the egos and organisations that use it to eschew scrutiny and build empires.

The last thing in the world that the Tories want is anyone looking too closely at anything beyond their opposition to a referendum. With independence, they’ll have nowhere to hide.