YOU can always rely on Russell T Davies – the writer behind the revamped Doctor Who and Queer as Folk – to give us TV thrills. But his latest creation, the witty state-of-the-nation drama Years and Years, is more notable for something else: prophetic chills.
Davies’ vision of post-Brexit Britain between 2019 and 2034 follows an extended Manchester family as they negotiate the domestic and global consequences of populism on both sides of Atlantic: another financial crash, a second Trump term leading to tensions with China and Russia, rising numbers of refugees, a “tell it like it is” figure turning the heads of UK voters. This is standard dystopian fayre, of course, but what struck me was how frighteningly real and believable it all was.
READ MORE: Davidson blocks Boris from Scottish Conservative conference
The events of the last week only highlight this chilling prescience, with Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, England’s real life populists, its Poundshop Donald Trumps, becoming the focus of attention once again.
Did Ruth Davidson watch Years and Years, I wonder? Did it perhaps cause her to reflect upon the role her party is playing in courting such populism, lurching the UK to increasingly extreme and uncomfortable norms? And, if it did, is she going to do anything about it?
Ms Davidson’s European election campaign leaflet may predictably be almost entirely focussed on “telling Nicola Sturgeon no more referendums”, and “making Nicola Sturgeon listen” (it mentions “Sturgeon” 12 times; Brexit is mentioned only three times), but the truth is what happens in pro-Remain Scotland on Thursday is a sideshow. After all, it’s the chaos her party continues to wreak in Westminster that matters most at this dangerous political moment. And the danger is growing.
READ MORE: Davidson: I'd happily never see another referendum
It’s going to take a dramatic turn in events for Mr Johnson not to become Tory leader – and thus PM – when Theresa May steps down in the coming weeks, likely after a thumping defeat in this week’s election, providing the perfect opportunity for Farage to charge in and suck up all that pro-Brexit anger.
What’s horrifying for many in Scotland, of course, is the thought of where all this might quickly lead us: the Brexit Party in the ascendant as a frighteningly real political force in England, and a hard Brexit under PM Johnson.
My question to Ms Davidson is this: are you willing enable such a damaging reality? The experience of the last three years doesn’t bode well. After campaigning vigorously to remain in the European Union before the referendum in 2016, Ms Davidson has done nothing to influence the trajectory of the Brexit negotiations in Scotland’s favour, revealing either that she heads a branch office with no power, or is willing to keep her mouth shut and put party first. Or both. The opposition of Scottish business and wider society to a Brexit that takes us out of the single market and reduces immigration has been shamefully ignored. The aforementioned Tory election leaflet disingenuously promises that a vote for Ms Davidson will “help secure a Brexit that works for Scotland and the whole UK”, knowing full well that any Brexit – soft or hard – will be at best detrimental, at worse catastrophic, for our economy.
READ MORE: Davidson: I am not scared by another Indyref
Last week the Scots Tory leader was all smiles as she addressed entrepreneurs in Edinburgh, boasting of her aim to be First Minister by 2021, talking of how her leadership would take advantage of a “new chapter” after an “orderly and managed” Brexit. Such hypocrisy in the face of her party’s disastrous UK leadership would be laughable were it not so utterly damaging to our citizens.
This grinning “it’s all going to be fine” parallel universe that Ms Davidson and her colleague David Mundell, the Scottish Secretary, still try to peddle surely cannot wash for much longer. The pair’s obvious and painful lack of influence has already left many asking what exactly the Scottish Tories are for. And with Boris seemingly on the cusp of power, such criticisms can only get louder.
An outspoken critic of Mr Johnson – he was barred from the party’s recent conference in Aberdeen – Ms Davidson is all too aware of the former foreign secretary’s deeply visceral unpopularity in Scotland, even with most Tories. Has the phrase “complete and utter charlatan”, as used by Ms Sturgeon last week, ever been so apt? Or so universally agreed with?
Even if a populist Johnson premiership does not push Scotland towards independence, as the SNP hope and believe it will, it would surely damage the position of the Scottish Tories, who throughout Brexit have been all too willing to stand by and fiddle as Rome burns.
Ms Davidson may soon be facing a stark choice: fall in behind Boris’s leadership, thus enabling her party’s plunge into far-right populism, or break away from the UK leadership completely, as Murdo Fraser favoured back in 2011.
With dystopian Britain increasingly becoming a reality, it’s time for Ms Davidson to choose what side she is on. And, yes, that also means deciding what the Scottish Conservatives are for.
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