Brian Monteith: Scot-free Tories wouldn’t rule England for ever

From time to time, especially when English Conservatives become irritated by special pleading by Scottish politicians, or see English legislation dictated by the votes of Scots MPs, the comment can be heard that England would be better off without those troublesome Scots, because it would mean the near permanent rule at Westminster of the Conservative Party.

The idea is a great conceit and needs to be exposed for the wishful thinking it is. There should be no room for it in a party that calls itself unionist, but it exposes the reality that people can be found in any party who are only interested in power and will be willing to sacrifice any principles to attain it.

It would be easy to dismiss the proposition as only held by cybernet commentators looking to wind each other up or the hackneyed stereotype of right-wingers who are big on prejudice but small on philosophy and have scant evidence or experience to back up their arguments. Such an assumption would be a dangerous misjudgment, for the myth-making of delivering permanent Conservative rule by allowing the break-up of the Union can be easily found at senior levels of the English Tory Party.

With the political stock of the Scottish Nationalists running high and the referendum on the maintenance of the Union looming ever closer, there is no doubt that the suggestion that permanent Tory rule in England can be heard more often – even if it is only thought of as a mere consolation for the departure of Scotland. For unionists it is, however, dangerous talk, for it can convince Scots that the English Tories are not interested in the Union but only interested in power.

The idea gained some credence following the general election of 2005 when 70,000 more English voters supported Michael Howard’s Conservatives than voted Labour, but due to the distribution of constituencies Labour managed to return 92 more MPs than the Tories.

After devolution in 1998, electoral arithmetic has often meant that when legislation that solely affected England is debated, Labour could, if there was a significant backbench revolt, require the help of its Scottish and Welsh Labour MPs to have it passed. These were living examples of the West Lothian question, the phenomenon first described by Tam Dalyell MP.

The reality of electoral results is somewhat different from the conjecture about what they might be. In 1966, 1997 and 2001 the Labour Party managed to win elections with majorities larger than the number of Scots Labour MPs it returned and would have won if Scotland were not in the UK. There is no reason that a well-led and coherent Labour Party could not win with such majorities in England again.

The electorate switches from one party to another for a variety of reasons. It may be the attractiveness of a fresh-faced new leader, it could be the mood music created by the positive messages on policies about crime, health and education or it could simply be that the desire for change itself, maybe from a tired, sleazy and arrogant government to a blameless opposition, is enough.

In the case of Tony Blair it was a combination of all of these things, which explains why he enjoyed such large majorities and was able to dominate the rest of the United Kingdom, not requiring the 70-odd MPs from Scotland and Wales to have his programme passed. Would Tory political strategists stake their salaries on Labour never coming to power again or never having another electable leader like Tony Blair again?

After the failure of the Conservatives to win the 2010 election against an unpopular prime minister who had delivered seven years of growing national deficits, the mother of all national debt and a recession as bad as anything in living memory, it is maybe not surprising that some might think that a Westminster shorn of Scotland would be attractive. It would, however, be unmitigated folly, for Conservatives who harbour the idea of permanent English Conservative rule are displaying an unattractive and unjustified arrogance.

By comparison with Labour’s performance, the Conservative Party has not had an outright British general election victory since 1992, some 20 years ago. True, without Scotland’s Labour MPs, and also those MPs from the SNP and Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives would require a smaller majority to triumph, but there is no guarantee they would be capable of achieving it and both history and political behaviour tell us it would not.

There is also another aspect to a this political musing that is dangerous for unionists, and it is that if Conservatives did start to find they were winning elections in the new UK easily there is every reason to expect that it would lead to a realignment of the opposition parties and possibly a split within the Conservatives themselves.

The reason for this is simple: British political parties are coalitions of different groups – sometimes representing regional areas, sometimes philosophical ideas, sometimes vested interests – and when a party becomes all-powerful and the opposition weak, these groups begin to fight each other rather than fight their opponents.

Governments that have small majorities find party discipline far easier than when they have large majorities, and having permanent power could see a new group – such as the party’s large eurosceptic wing – seeking to exert more authority or break away. The idea that having permanent power would not bring unpredictable and uncontrollable developments in a country that has regularly voted for change is risible. The Conservative Party, especially a divided one, could easily become unattractive enough to be defeated.

Whatever the arguments English nationalists may have to break up the Union, the idea that it will lead to permanent Tory rule is a weak one and ought to be ignored. Those who stand to benefit most from giving this bad idea oxygen are the Scottish Nationalists and that alone should be enough to tell these sloppy Conservative thinkers to read more political psephology. • Brian Monteith is policy director of ThinkScotland.org