Boris’s Saltire slip up sets the Tories back in Scotland

Scottish nationalism has taken on many guises over the past few decades. There was the idea of “Scotland in Europe”, and the grand mythology of Bruce and Braveheart (nurtured in no small part by the American diaspora), and even dreams of a socialist revolution along Celtic lines. However, over the past year, the SNP has narrowed its prospectus to a very simple formulation – that Scotland always loses as part of the UK.

The Tory party has played into that notion with its choice of its last two leaders, first, in Theresa May’s very English style of prim provincialism and now in Boris Johnson, whose character act seems to be constructed to infuriate Scottish sensibilities, a rudely assembled collection of Wodehousian tropes.

At the Scottish reception at the Conservative party conference last night, Boris Johnson did little to dispel the impression that his Brexit strategy may further toxify the Tory brand north of the border. Indeed, a YouGov poll conducted in early September found that the Tories could potentially suffer a 14 per cent slump on the vote share they secured at the 2017 general election in Scotland, if they were to maintain a “do or die” Brexit strategy. That could see every one of the 13 Tory-held seats fall to the SNP.

Jackson Carlaw, Ruth Davidson’s interim replacement as leader of the Scottish Tories, had earlier in the day fallen into line with the Prime Minister on that commitment. He could support a no deal Brexit, he told a fringe event hosted by the Scottish Conservatives, instead of the “endless drift” promised by a further extension.

Johnson took to the stage, introduced by his new ally Carlaw, to whoops and chants (“Boris! Boris! Boris!”). In buoyant form, Johnson said that he would “stick to his guns” in using military metaphor (“the Surrender Act”) to make his case for Brexit. Cue audience roars. Boris luxuriates in the crowd: he hits a winning note, he slams into it again for all its worth; when he strikes the wrong tone, he shifts on speedily. Indeed, his great skill as a stumping campaigner is his winning self-confidence – he continues: “I’ve got to be myself. I’ve got no other choice.”

Swinson was a “pound shop Mary Poppins,” he said. The SNP were “frauds”, he said, “who bleat endlessly on about their desire to smash up the oldest and most successful political union.”

Moving on to climate change, he spoke of his pride that COP26, the UN climate change conference would be held in Glasgow next year. Drawing on a theme he had begun to developed a few phrases before (“I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We make sure – with every policy we pursue, with every investment we make in Scotland, then we put a Union flag on it”), he said: “I guess I don’t mind seeing a Saltire or two on that summit, but I want to see a union flag – I don’t want to see Nicola Sturgeon anywhere near it, because the Scottish Nationalist Party didn’t secure that summit in Glasgow, it was the United Kingdom government.”

No matter that environmental policy is a devolved issue, or that it surely isn’t possible to ban the First Minister of Scotland from attending a climate conference held in Scotland’s largest city, it was a careless gesture that seemed designed to run against Scottish sensitivities.

Since the Act of Union in 1707, Scottish participation in the Union has co-existed with a political culture quite different to England with its own legal and education system and distinctive conception of religious rights. But what’s all that to Boris? He lives to thrill the crowd, to please the people around him with clever turns of phrase, and neat debating tactics. However, his party may find in the long run that they should have heeded JFK’s dictum in his inaugural address of 1961: “Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.”

The result of Johnson’s carelessness – his unscripted foray creating the impression he was dissing or relegating the Saltire – is that the Tories look, after all their hard work under Ruth Davidson, as though they once again have a tin-ear for Scottish sensibilities.