David Cameron has discussed in detail for the first time the approach that he would take in dealing with the SNP administration in Scotland if he becomes Prime Minister after the next election.
Writing in Scotland on Sunday, Mr Cameron pledges that whilst he will do "everything in my power to ensure that the SNP will not be able to split up the UK", he would want to be "a prime minister that would work constructively with any administration at Holyrood for the good of Scotland".
The Tory leader sets out three ways in which he would go about this:
He concludes:
"This commitment to true partnership between our nations
sets the Conservatives apart from the other parties in Scotland as much
as our commitment to modern, centre-right ideas. We are the only party
that can bring about the change Scotland needs."
Even if David Cameron is elected Prime Minister with a working Commons
majority at the next election, the electoral arithmetic north of the
border still means that there is likely to be little more than a
handful of Conservative MPs sent to Westminster from Scotland, which is
a potential weak point for David Cameron.
After all, the default position of the SNP administration would surely
be to claim that the Conservatives therefore do not have a mandate to
govern in Scotland.
As such, David Cameron’s article today emphasising his desire to
co-operate with Mr Salmond et al is clearly an attempt to foster
goodwill at an early stage.
But there is something else he could do which would have the potential
to shoot the SNP fox: what about promising an early referendum offering
the option of independence for Scotland or the status quo of devolution
within the UK?
As an electoral tactic this would enable the Tories to offer SNP voters
the opportunity to vote for their party’s principal stated policy for
real (and three of the top Tory target seats are SNP-held).
But more importantly, since polls show that a majority of Scots would
not back fully fledged independence, a referendum vote effectively
endorsing the current constitutional settlement would allow David
Cameron to rightly claim to be the legitimate Prime Minister across the
United Kingdom.
Jonathan Isaby