Indyref 2 is main threat to Scotland

THERE is no point complaining sometimes. The Conservative Party said it would deliver Brexit and take the United Kingdom out of the EU on March 29. We failed to deliver on that promise.

As a result, voters used the European Parliament elections to give our candidates a kicking. That is what happens to parties which promise to obey a democratic decision taken by the electorate, only to fall short.

So the first thing to say is we get it. Everyone I work with in the Conservative Party believes that we must deliver Brexit, or risk further alienating voters.

If we continue to delay Brexit, the Conservatives may as well hand a bank of seats in the Commons to Nigel Farage.

But the second thing to say, specifically to pro-Union voters in Scotland is that Brexit is not the only show in town. Because the threat of another independence referendum is back.

Yesterday, the SNP picked up three of Scotland’s six seats, an increase of one from 2014.

And, despite Nicola Sturgeon declaring last week that the EU elections had little to do with independence, yesterday up she popped with tedious predictability to claim the vote only strengthened her case for a rerun of the 2014 referendum. It was yet another reminder that the Nationalists’ professed dedication to the European cause is motivated entirely by their only real priority – which is to take Scotland out of the UK.

Take this week. With the scent of victory in their noses, they will now hope to press home their advantage. And tomorrow, it’s expected that Miss Sturgeon will table legislation at Holyrood on a second independence vote.

Instead of focusing on fixing our education system or delivering on welfare powers handed to them, we face the grim spectacle of our government focusing yet again on their desperate attempt to take us back to more division and uncertainty.

This is the real problem facing Scotland – a Nationalist government, trapping Scotland in a ‘neverendum’, and failing to use the many powers at its disposal to drive the country forward.

So, those of us who oppose the SNP’s referendum plans must now face up to some hard truths. One of the reasons for the SNP’s success was because the opposition was divided over Brexit.

Nicola Sturgeon was the winner from this. It allowed the Nationalists to declare themselves clear victors.

And while the Conservative vote share in Scotland held up better this week than in other parts of the UK, it’s also correct to say that our efforts to beat the SNP will be hampered if the opposition to the SNP is as divided as it was last week.

So pro-Union voters must come back together. There is little point in hoping that Scottish Labour can do this – this week’s vote confirmed that the party is but a shadow of its former self.

Instead, evidence of the last few years points to Ruth Davidson’s Scottish Conservatives as being the only party which can bring people together, take on the SNP and beat them.

Scotland faces a governing party hell-bent on using the current political turmoil to take us out of the UK. As a Unionist, I believe it is this issue which must take precedence. We must focus on delivering Brexit. Then we can work, together, on putting referendums in Scotland behind us, once and for all.