Well, well, well, here's a surprise: initial reports that the Scottish Tories were preparing to make a bold, confident, surprising manoevre were, it seems, somewhat exaggerrated. This should come as no surprise.
Though the party's vice-chairman Richard Cook, told Scotland on Sunday that he favoured a referendum on the question of Scottish independence sooner rather than later as part of an ambitious bid to "shoot the nationalist fox" (hunting foxes with hounds having been, of course, outlawed), I agree with Mr Eugenides that this seems to be an instance of Mr Cook trying to bounce the party leadership into at least contemplating such a move, rather than any real indication that such an unusually adventurous move will become party policy.
This is, of course, maddening. I remain agnostic on the question of independence, but have bored on time and time again about how the Tories and the SNP are natural allies. Had the Tories been brave enough to embrace a referendum from the outset they could perhaps have found a way of forming a coalition government with the SNP. But no, better by far to remain on the outside, far from power...
Of course, the Tories and the SNP would find themselves on opposite sides in any such plebiscite, but that need not have been an insuperable obstacle to an alliance born of convenience, yes, but also some useful political advantage for both parties too.
Nonetheless, Mr Cook makes a point familiar to those readers who have doggedly ploughed through previous posts on this subject:
"My position is that we should be making the positive case for the Union, not the negative case for independence. We are talking about the things that are bad rather than the things that are good about the Union at present."
The Tories have been making this mistake for 20 years; Labour joined them in negative campaigning in the recent election. Scots might look askance at any "Morning in Scotland" type of speech, but you can only tell people they're uselessly and hopelessly incompetent for so long before some of them at least will become fed up and tell you to sod off. This too is why the future of the centre-right in Scotland lies with a party prepared to act as Tartan Gaullists, not with a party that sees any further political expression of Scottishness or move towards independence as a step along the road to ruin.
Indeed, it's hard to imagine anything worse for Scottish conservatism than that it should be identified as the home for last-ditch Unionism and nothing else. The future of centre-right politics in Scotland to some extent depends upon the Tories ability to escape that trap. Finding a way to get into government would be a good start.
So, no surprise then that the party leadership has dismissed the idea of an early referendum - much, I suspect, to the relief of First Minister Alex Salmond who cannot really relish the prospect of a referendum he would most probably lose. After all, why would the Tories want to risk creatng a fuss or setting the agenda? That's for other people to do.
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