Open letter to Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan, the idea of forcing Full Fiscal Autonomy on Scotland is all the rage in Conservative circles, if this is pushed through you will alienate the very people who saved the Union, David Cameron cannot allow this idea to become policy, ordinary Scots would suffer severely leading many to believe the Union exists in name only

Dear Daniel

“I’ve long had a pet theory that voters get it right. General elections, in Britain at any rate, are won by the party that most deserves to win – or, at least, lost by the party that most deserves to lose”.

In the main, I would agree with you that voters do get it right, even when they get it ‘wrong’. That is what happened in Scotland was the voters got it badly wrong but they have the right to do so. This isn’t a defence of any particular candidate or party who suffered badly on May 7th in Scotland but an observation of how toxic it is in Scottish politics since the Scottish referendum.

“Labour, Greens, Scottish and Welsh Nationalists: all raged against “Tory austerity” as though it were a whim rather than a necessity”.

David Cameron played a blinder of an election, he used the SNP as a ‘bogeyma’n to win in England, and it worked very well. But let’s look at Scotland; I understand the Conservatives made no gains in seats, although I think it has been said the vote share went up. The SNP tapped into dissatisfaction with Westminster, when you have the ‘bedroom tax’ and you have ‘financial benefit sections’ of the poor, do you think they will rally to your cause?

No!

The SNP presented themselves as the milk and honey party, the party of nirvana, except there isn’t any milk and honey in their nirvana.

“The reason public spending was not rising, they asserted – and seemed genuinely to believe – was not that we had run out of cash, but that the country was governed by psychopaths who took some kind of sadistic pleasure in hurting the poor”.

Is benefit sanctions which mean people have no money for food an act of kindness? Did the “psychopaths” sit down and say, we really do need to do an act of kindness, to which someone presumably with an Oxford degree and from a rich family said, ‘well, I always found that stopping people’s money ‘helps’ people who have no money to fall back on’. I was nearly stabbed to death once, did my attacker feel this measure was an act of kindness to ‘help’ train hospital staff and reduce my weight?

“On one doorstep, I was confronted by an angry trade union representative from the local hospital. The idea that there was a limit to government expenditure sent her into a purple, choking fury”.

Does meeting someone who doesn’t understand economics really prove your case? If there isn’t a bottomless pit of money could banks be put in the same category? I don’t know but I think many poor people would like to ask that question of you.

“Commentators struggle to explain the rise of the SNP: why, seven months after rejecting separation, should Scots turn to the separatist party?”

Unhappiness with the Westminster system, there isn’t a struggle; people found that when they sought ‘representation’, they weren’t getting it. The joke of this story is that they don’t know yet, that they still wouldn’t get it under the SNP.

If by some quirky of madness that David Cameron went down the road of FFA, he would be doing so in the knowledge that chaos would ensue in Scotland, as the SNP cut, cut and cut, they would point the finger at England.

Here is a choice for you Daniel to pick, would you rather be burnt in the frying pan or burnt in the fire?

Is that what free-marketeers in the land of Adam Smith want?

No, they want what people everywhere want, they want a government that makes their lives better. If FFA was forced on Scotland, the SNP would cite that they couldn’t get the changes they wanted in place and blame the Tories. The SNP need a villain and what better than a Conservative Government. 35 years, the Conservatives have spent in the wilderness in Scotland, new broom Ruth Davidson delivers a massive failure; her first test equals failure.

Do you think 2016 will be looking rosier for her?

“The SNP demands full fiscal autonomy, and David Cameron should hurry to meet that demand. Partly because linking taxation to expenditure north of the border might allow a revival, over time, of Right-of-Centre politics in Scotland”.

I am a great believer in doing pilots, that way test data can be accrued and analysis done, if we take your MEP salary and expenses away from you, how long would it take for you to become politically economically unviable? Then as your situation deteriorates this could be ‘helped’ by penalising you further by withdrawing other resources, and yes, I do mean toilet paper and light bulbs.

If you want a viable right-of-centre politics established in Scotland, then I strongly suggest you understand not what it means to be Tory, Labour, Lib dem or Nationalist, but what it means to be Scottish.

Finally, there is a sizeable chunk of Scots that are anti-Westminster, do you want provide an argument using FFA to convert others?

On the 19th February I did a blog post that the Labour Party was making a mess of their Scottish election by doing ‘tat’ instead of tackling real issues.

A Conservative in East Renfrewshire told me on Facebook:

“George as ever you were on the money”.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University