Scotland does not vote Tory

As a nation Scotland hasn’t voted Tory for 60 years and, even despite overtaking Labour, still languish at less support than Margaret Thatcher’s low point.

Yet particularly since the Brexit vote they act as if the people of Scotland overwhelmingly support them and will accept anything the Tory party wants to impose on them.

Before the independence referendum Ruth Davidson promised us voting “no means we stay in” the EU.

She and David Cameron signed a pledge saying “power lies with the Scottish people... to decide how Scotland is governed”.

Cameron went further by saying “all the options of devolution are there and are possible” if Scotland voted no.

The Tory rhetoric was clear. Both Theresa May and Ruth Davidson said Scotland was an “equal partner” in the UK. David Cameron promised “no going back to the way things were”.

But what have they done since winning the 2015 election and the Brexit referendum that puts 80,000 Scottish jobs at risk and will result in falling living standards as the falling pound threatens inflation?

A referendum that they only held because of splits in the Tory party. A Brexit Ruth Davidson said was based on “lies” yet now tells people will be wonderful.

Despite saying a no vote meant power lay with the Scottish people and that we could have all options of devolution, the Tories voted down proposals by 95% of Scotland’s MPs that more powers should be devolved. The sole Tory MP from Scotland as Secretary of State haughtily denies powers to those MPs and the elected government of Scotland wish to see devolved.

We hear a Tory prime minister that hasn’t even put her plans to a public vote signal she will ignore the compromise the Scottish Government put forward for Brexit.

Meanwhile Tory lords say they want to use Brexit to finish what Thatcher started. In short the Tories are acting as if they think the people of Scotland will just meekly accept whatever they impose.

Scotland voted no on the promise that the Tories wouldn’t return to the way things were done in the past and on the basis power lay with the Scottish people.

Scotland voted to remain in the EU and the European single market to protect jobs. The reality under a Tory Westminster government doesn’t even come anywhere near that.

It is their arrogant actions that are narrowing the choices for Scotland’s future meaning the only way we can have an equal partnership with the rest of the UK is independence because the alternative is a future of Tory governments telling Scotland what to do just like they did in the 1980s. Andrew Stuart Glasgow