Breaking through in Scotland

Now that the dust has settled on the General Election, the analysis can begin.  The key point for discussion for the Conservatives is bound to be the question of where they could have done better and won the seats needed in order to form a majority government.  One of the main failings in this respect was the inability of the Party to win more than one seat in Scotland.


Ever since the Thatcher years Conservative performance in Scotland has been in perpetual decline, with the Conservative presence in Scotland falling to just one seat in 1997 and remaining that way ever since.

One cannot deny the fact that the Central Party as well as the Scottish Conservative Party have made enormous efforts in trying to rectify this situation.  This should have been enough, with a respectable number of Scottish seats falling inside the 116 easiest seats for the Conservatives to take in order to gain a majority in the House.

The question that needs to be asked, therefore, is what the Conservatives need to do in order to regain the trust of the Scottish people again.

It is painfully clear that the legacy of the Thatcher years has hit hardest in the north of the UK, in Scotland in particular, which has led to a large amount of not only anti-Thatcher, but anti-Tory sentiment in northern communities; Scotland in particular.  To this extent it has been well acknowledged that victory in the General Election was a vital step in the rebuilding of the party.  Five years in Government should be enough to show the electorate that the Conservatives are no longer the "nasty party" of old.

This idea, however, is only possible if there is a Conservative presence to highlight this aspect.  In Scotland this is sadly lacking.

ConservativeHome has come up with a solution to this problem; the creation of a separate Scottish Conservative Party along the same lines as the CSU/CDU model that works to such great effect here in Germany.

The premise is quite simple.  Whilst the CDU is the "mainstream" Conservative party in Germany, the CSU adopts a different ideology.  Seeing as they operate solely in Bavaria, it enables them to adapt their policies to suit the extreme conservatism of this Catholic heartland.  The two parties then have an agreement whereby they form a union in the Bundestag (not too unlike the Conservatives and the Ulster Unionist Party before the UUP lost its last seat in Northern Ireland).

The foundation of a distinct Scottish Conservative Party (or even just a resurrection of the old Scottish Unionist Party) would provide the opportunity for the Conservative Party to have an arm dedicated solely to the interests of Scottish voters and the tackling of Scottish issues whilst also offering a distinct antithesis to the SNP; almost being in a position to provide a clear and distinct go-to party for those who disagree with the increasing sentiment of Nationalism.

The message from the voters of Scotland is clear though.  In order to bring about change, change must first of all come from within.