The Scottish Tories are facing an identity crisis

Why is the only party of the centre-right in Scotland so far away from government? As the Labour Party becomes more sensible under Sir Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Conservatives are facing an increasingly existential threat. Their conference gets underway in Aberdeen this weekend — and the party must not waste this opportunity to confront what is going wrong.

One of the main problems facing Douglas Ross’s Scottish Tories is that his party and the SNP are inextricably linked. Both groups are utterly dependent on the prospect of a second independence referendum being credible and real. Think about it: the SNP’s overarching narrative for the last 10 years has been ‘vote for us and you will have a second independence referendum’. For the Tories, their solitary message has been ‘vote for us and we will stop a second independence referendum’. Both have been successful strategies, because indyref 2 looked plausible — until the Supreme Court ruled that the Scottish Parliament doesn’t have the power to legislate for a referendum on Scottish independence.